KARL LIEBKNECHT 

MILITARISM 




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CDJKRIGHT DEPOSITS 



MILITARISM 



MILITARISM 



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KARL LIEBKNECHT 




NEW YORK 

B. W. HUEBSCH 

MCMXVII 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
B. W. HUEBSCH 

First printing. October. 1917 
Second printing, October. 1917 



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PBXKTED IH THE TTNITBD STATES OF AUStXCA 

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CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Nature and Significance of Mili- 
tarism 1 

Origin and Foundation of Forms of Social 
Domination 3 

Some Facts from the History of Militarism lo 

II Capitalistic Militarism . . . . . . 21 

Preliminary Remarks 21 

"Militarism for Abroad," Navalism and 
Colonial Militarism. Possibilities of 
War and Disarmament 22 

The Proletariat and War 33 

Fundamental Features of "Militarism for 
Home" and its Purpose ..... 38 

Army Systems of Some Foreign Countries 41 

Conclusions. Russia ...... 50 

III Means and Effects of Militarism . . 58 

The Immediate Groal 58 

Military Pedagogy. Training Soldiers 59 

Semi-Official and Semi-Military Organ- 
ization of the Civil Population • • « 79 

Other ways of influencing the Civilian 
Population in a Military Direction 82 

Militarism as Machiavellism and as a 
Political Regulator .90 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV Concerning Some Cardinal Sins of Mili- 
tarism ..... 95 

Maltreatment of Soldiers or Militarism as a 
Repentant, Yet Unreformed Sinner. 

Two Dilemmas 95 

The Costs of Militarism or La dovAoureuse 107 
The Army as a Weapon Against the Pro- 
letariat in the Economic Struggle . . .118 
Soldiers as the Competitors of Free Work- 
ers 120 

The Army and Strike-Breaking . . .122 
The Rule of the Sabre and Gun in Strikes 124 

Italy 127 

Austria-Hungary .. . . . . . . 130 

Belgium .. ... . .. . 133 

France 136 

United States of America . . . . .140 
Canada .......... 146 

Switzerland . 147 

Norway 152 

Germany 152 

.Veterans' Associations and Strikes . . . 156 
The Army as a Weapon Against the Pro- 
letariat in the Political Struggle, or the Rule 

of the Cannon 160 

Veterans' Associations in the Political Strug- 
gle 170 

Militarism, a Menace to Peace . . . .171 
The Obstacles of the Proletarian Revolutioa 177 



KARL LIEBKNECHT 

"He sowed the seed that freedom men might reap." 

This book, which is now presented to American 
readers for the first time, has a unique history, and 
forms a vital part of Liebknecht's long struggle 
against militarism. In September, 1906, Dr. 
Karl Liebknecht, the author, delivered a lecture 
on "Militarism" at a conference of young people 
in Germany. The revised lecture was published 
in book form and the most important portions 
appear in the following pages. For some time, 
the German authorities paid little heed to it, and 
it was not until April 23, 1907, that the book 
was confiscated and the author charged with trea- 
son. 

Liebknecht's trial began on the ninth of Oc- 
tober, 1907, and lasted three days. The defend- 
ant was found guilty and sentenced to a year and 
a half of imprisonment. In sentencing him, the 



ii INTRODUCTION 

Imperial Court declared that Liebknecht aimed 
at the abolition of the standing army, and that 
this army was an integral part of the nation's con- 
stitution. In one statement, made in the latter 
part of his lecture, he had theorized concerning 
the possible future activities of the troops in be- 
half of the coming revolution, asserting that these 
activities might be regarded as the logical result of 
the demoralization of the military spirit. From 
this statement, which was a purely theoretical hy- 
pothesis, the Imperial Court cc«acluded that Lieb- 
knecht's intention was to injure the morale of the 
army. The destruction of this morale, it de- 
clared, could be brought about only by forcible 
means, and the use of such means was but the first 
step in the destruction of the constitution. 

The court paid absolutely no attention to the 
statement of the author that only lawful means 
should be used in bringing about the change, and 
that no agitation should be conducted which 
would incite the soldiers directly or indirectly to 
disobedience. The Socialist Party, Liebknecht 
had maintained, as in the past, should energetic- 



INTRODUCTION iii 

ally defend the private soldiers and the non-com- 
missioned officers, should represent their material 
and professional interests in the press and in par- 
liament and should endeavor tactfully to win the 
sympathies of these circles. In such remarks a 
German Imperial Court discovered high treason! 

The trial was one of the most sensational ever 
held in Europe. The Kaiser, it was afterwards 
learned, was kept constantly in touch with the 
progress of the trial by a special wire. The at- 
torney general urged the accused to plead guilty 
and promised, if this were done, to ask the court 
for clemency. To this plea, Liebknecht quickly 
retorted, *T take entire responsibility for every 
word I have written." On the second day of 
the trial, the defendant declared in open court that 
he was convinced that a verdict of guilty had 
already been decided on. His address to the 
judges was one of the clearest, most incisive and 
boldest attacks ever made against German mili- 
tarism. 

"The aim of my life," he declared, "is the over- 
throw of monarchy, as well as the emancipation 



IV INTRODUCTION 

of the exploited working class from political and 
economic bondage. As my father, who appeared 
before this court exactly thirty-five years ago to 
defend himself against the charge of treason, was 
ultimately pronounced victor, so I believe the day 
not far distant when the principles which I repre- 
sent will be recognized as patriotic, as honorable, 
as true." 

Liebknecht's courageous stand on this occa- 
sion was rewarded by a sentence of a year and a 
half in a military prison, as before stated. As 
a sharp rebuke to this sentence, the working peo- 
ple of Berlin promptly nominated and elected him, 
while still in prison, as their representative for 
the Prussian Landtag. It was in the Landtag 
that Liebknecht started his real campaign against 
Prussian militarism. His attacks against the sys- 
tem were bitter. Time without number he was 
called to order by the chair; frequently he was 
removed from the floor of the chamber. 

He represented the working people of Berlin, 
as well, in the Common Council, and in 1912, 
the citizens of Potsdam-Spandau who were em- 



INTRODUCTION y 

ployed for the most part in government am- 
munition works, selected him as their representa- 
tive in the Reichstag. I saw Liebknecht during 
the great campaign preceding his election. He 
described the methods employed by the govern- 
ment to defeat him. The government endeav- 
ored to show that he was anti-patriotic, because 
he had failed to uphold its hands in the Morocco 
affair. To this the workers gave a deaf ear. The 
next move was an attempt to terrorize the state 
employes. The authorities even went so far as to 
make a ruling prohibiting them from voting for 
him — on the ground that he was an enemy of the 
state. However, the dissatisfaction with the gov- 
ernment was great. The campaign of intimida- 
tion failed and Liebknecht was elected by an over- 
whelming vote, to the intense joy of those who 
knew and loved him. 

I saw the surging crowd before the office of 
the Berlin Vorwdrts the night of the election, and 
heard the wild applause when announcement of 
his election was made. A young workingman 
exclaimed to those who were around him: "The 



vi INTRODUCTION 

new voice of freedom will be heard from now on 
in the Reichstag." The words were prophetic. 
This body never heard stronger protests against 
the domination of the civil mind by the military 
than those which this new apostle uttered. He 
issued his invectives against the armament trust, 
and showed its corrupting influence over govern- 
ment officials and press. He gave to the public 
the story of a late Prussian general, who lived by 
borrowing — a not infrequent habit of these of- 
ficers — and by trading in government medals and 
positions and honorary titles. The general had 
been in the good graces of the Kaiser, and the 
story did little to increase the prestige of the lat- 
ter or of the military caste. The man about to be 
selected by the Kaiser as war secretary was ex- 
posed by the anti-militarist member of Parlia- 
ment as an ordinary swindler and the honesty of 
the military group was thereby further brought 
into question. 

Liebknecht also raised his voice in behalf of 
a German Republic at a time when those who 
now declare that the only way to end the war is 



INTRODUCTION vii 

by making Germany a republic, supported and 
encouraged the Geraian monarchy. On one 
memorable occasion, in a debate in the Prussian 
Landtag over the building of the new opera house, 
Liebknecht took the floor and declared: "The 
opera house for which we are asked to vote the 
necessary funds, should last for many generations. 
We trust that it will last long after it has lost its 
character as a Royal Opera House." 

This daring statement brought upon his head 
scathing denunciations from the majority of the 
members, who were unable to imagine how one 
could dare suggest a republic in a Prussian parlia- 
ment. And this pronouncement was issued long 
before kings and presidents dreamed of fighting 
to make the world safe for democracy, for hu- 
manity. 

When the European war broke out, a meeting 
was called of the Social-Democratic members of 
the Reichstag, for the purpose of deciding what 
stand the party should take on the war. Karl 
Kautsky, the theoretical leader of Socialism, was 
also invited. It was, perhaps, the stormiest meet- 



viii INTRODUCTION 

ing ever held by that group. The majority con- 
tended that this was a war of defense; that Ger- 
many was attacked by Russia; that, although 
there was little liberty in Germany, there was still 
less in Russia, and that Socialists should, there- 
fore, vote for the war budget. Furthermore, 
some argued, by this action it will be possible 
for Socialists to secure further rights from the 
government. Should they take the opposite 
course, the funds of the labor unions will be con- 
fiscated, and the Socialist press and movement, 
built up through long years of painful endeavor, 
will be destroyed. Finally, as Socialists do not 
constitute the majority, the war budget will, in 
any case,^ be passed whether they support it or 
not. 

A second group, represented by Kautsky, ad- 
yised that the party abstain from voting alto- 
gether. A vote against the war budget might 
leave the country defenseless. The Socialist, it 
was understood, would defend the country in case 
of attack, especially should such attack come from 
such a country as Russia. Germany, this group 



INTRODUCTION ix 

believed, was then being attacked by the forces of 
the Czar. By taking the middle-of-the road posi- 
tion, and voting neither for nor against the budget, 
the Socialist would not be voting against the de- 
fense of his country, and on the other hand, would 
not be assuming responsibility for all of the acts 
committed by his government prior to the war. 
Since then, it may be said in passing, Kautsky has 
taken a more militant position against the war. 

The third group was represented by Liebknecht. 
"This war," argued Liebknecht and his followers, 
"is an imperialist war for domination of world 
markets, and for the benefit of bankers and manu- 
facturers. It is also a war tending to destroy 
the growing labor movement. It is not a war of 
defense. It is therefore our plain duty to vote 
against the war budget." 

The first position won out, and according to 
the rules governing the organization of the 
group, the minority had to bow to the decision of 
the majority. It was for this reason that the en- 
tire Social Democratic delegation voted for the 
war budget at the first open meeting of the Reichs- 



X INTRODUCTION 

tag after the outbreak of the war. At the second 
session in December Liebknecht was the only man 
who dared to stand up in the Reichstag against the 
decision of all parties and vote against the budget. 
He not only cast his vote, but he also dared to 
state in an open meeting of the Reichstag to a 
Germany then apparently victorious, that the Ger- 
mans were the aggressors in the war, and that it 
was an imperialistic war provoked by his coun- 
try and Austria. He protested against the viola- 
tion of Belgium and Luxembourg; against the 
military dictatorship; against Prussian and Ger- 
man autocracy. Whether one agrees or disagrees 
with his position, one cannot but admit the cour- 
ageous character of the act, — which is bound 
to be recorded as one of the most heroic of the 
world drama. 

On May i, 1916, Liebknecht participated in a 
May Day Peace demonstration in Berlin. It was 
on this occasion that he delivered the peace address 
which brought to him an imprisonment of four 
years and one month of hard labor. 

"We Germans in Prussia," he declared, ''have 



INTRODUCTION xi 

three cardinal rights: the right to be soldiers, to 
pay taxes, to keep our tongues between our teeth. 

"Poverty and misery, need and starvation, are 
ruling in Germany. Belgium, Poland and Ser- 
bia, whose blood the vampire of imperialism is 
sucking, resemble vast cemeteries. The entire 
world, the much praised European civilization, 
is falling into ruin through the anarchy which 
has been let loose by the world war. 

"Those who profit from the war desire war 
with America. To-morrow, perhaps, they may 
order us to aim weapons against new groups of our 
brothers, against our fellow workers in America. 
Consider well the fact: as long as the German 
people do not rise and enforce their own will, 
the assassination of the people will continue. 
Let thousands of voices shout: 'Down with the 
shameless extermination of nations ! Down with 
those who are responsible for these crimes !' " 

Immediately after his anti-war address, Lieb- 
knecht was arrested. He claimed parliamentary 
immunity, but this claim was not allowed. 
While in prison awaiting trial, he sent two letters 



xii INTRODUCTION 

to the military court, containing the reasons why- 
he opposed the German government, militarism 
and the war. These letters are powerful indict- 
ments against these institutions as well as against 
international capitalism — the breeder of war. 

"The cry of 'down with the war'' is meant to 
give voice to the fact that I thoroughly condemn 
and oppose the present war because of its his- 
torical nature ; because of its general social causes ; 
the particular way in which it was brought about; 
the manner in which it is conducted and the object 
for which it is fought. I oppose it also in the be- 
lief that it is the duty of every representative of 
the proletariat to take part in the international 
class struggle for the purpose of putting an end 
thereto. As a Socialist, I am a thorough-going 
opponent of the existing military system as well 
as of this war. I have always supported with all 
my power the battle against militarism. Its over- 
throw is a particularly important task for the 
working class of all countries to perform ; in fact, 
it is a matter of life and death to them. 

"In partnership with the Austrian govern- 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

ment," he declared, "it [the German govern- 
ment] plotted to bring about this war and thus 
burdened itself with the principal responsibility 
for its immediate outbreak. It began the war by 
misleading the masses of people, and even by mis- 
leading the Reichstag — compare, among other 
things, the concealment of the ultimatum to Bel- 
gium, the make-up of the German White Book, 
the elimination therefrom of the dispatch of the 
Czar on July 29, 1914, etc. — and it continues to 
maintain war sentiment among the people by the 
use of reprehensible methods." 

Those letters show Liebknecht in his true light. 
He is not only, as some try to paint him, an op- 
ponent of this war, but is an opponent of all wars. 
He is not only committed to the fight against re- 
action at home, but to that against autocracy, 
wherever it exists. 

On June 28, 1916, Karl Liebknecht was sen- 
tenced to thirty months' penal servitude. The 
trial was secret. When the public prosecutor 
asked for this secrecy Liebknecht exclaimed : *Tt 
is cowardice on your part, gentlemen. Yes, I re- 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

peat, that you are cowards if you close these doors. 
You should be ashamed of yourself." Despite 
this protest the public was excluded. 

When the news of the sentence was conveyed to 
the people crowding outside of the court room, a 
cry went forth, "Our Liebknecht has been con- 
demned to two years and a half imprisonment. 
Long live Liebknecht !" 

An appeal was made, but resulted only in an 
increase in the term of sentence to one of more 
than four years, and further appeal was denied. 
At present, Liebknecht is in prison making shoes, 
presumably, some one asserted, to help the Prus- 
sian government to stand on its feet. Sentenced, 
as he is to penal servitude, it is impossible for him 
to practice law again, and his legal career seems 
thus a thing of the past. The German ruling 
class has now accomplished its object. It 
has Karl Liebknecht, one of the noblest and 
truest fighters for democracy and freedom, safely 
behind prison bars. 

In all his agitation against war and militarism, 
and against political despotism, Karl Liebknecht 



INTRODUCTION xv 

has proved a worthy son of a great sire. When- 
ever he enters a fight which he deems a righteous 
one, he throws into it his whole being, regardless 
of personal consequences. His unfailing cour- 
tesy and hospitality are recognized by all who 
know him. "To meet him is to love him," is a 
phrase not inappropriately bestowed when ap- 
plied to this fighter for democracy. 

A brief sketch of Liebknecht may be of inter- 
est. He was born in Leipzig in August, 1871, 
the same year that his father was arrested on the 
charge of high treason. He studied first in Leip- 
zig and then in Berlin, where he attended the 
University. From this institution he received his 
doctor's degree in political economy and law. 

Liebknecht began his career of social enlighten- 
ment by organizing literary societies for the study 
of social problems. Later in Berlin he became ac- 
tive in the Socialist movement. His law office — 
he had three partners, of whom two were his broth- 
ers — was always a mecca for the oppressed. Al- 
most any day, waiting in that office for Liebknecht 
who would reach there after his duties were over 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

at the Reichstag, the Landtag or the Common 
Council, one would find audiences of many kinds. 
Some would be there to consult him on legal mat- 
ters; some were students from home and abroad 
desiring personal advice and material help. Here 
was one looking for a position; another, desiring 
Liebknechf s help in getting articles published in 
the Socialist press; a third seeking information 
about entrance conditions at the university; still 
another anxious to be spared from police perse- 
cution. All were received with the utmost cour- 
tesy. All obtained a word of advice and help 
from "our Karl," as his friends call him. 

In private life, Liebknecht has proved a fond 
husband and a loving father. His present wife 
• — his first is deceased — is a Russian by birth, a 
graduate of the University of Heidelberg, and 
is an ideal life companion. 

Liebknecht's vison has often proved prophetic. 
I remember well the conversation I had with him 
in 1912, just after the outbreak of the first Balkan 
war when all Europe was on the qui vive, expect- 
ing momentarily that the Balkan war would 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

spread throughout the continent. I arrived in 
Berlin rather late in the evening, immediately 
went to Liebknecht's office, and while traveling 
home with him discussed the political situation. 
Bethmann-Hollweg had delivered a speech in the 
Reichstag that very day. 

"This speech," remarked Liebknecht, in a tone 
filled with seriousness, "has made it clear to me 
that Germany will back up Austria under all cir- 
cumstances." 

"How long would it take Germany to mobi- 
lized" I asked him. 

"About thirty-six hours," he declared. And 
from Liebknecht's tone one could see that he had 
the picture of the world tragedy before his eyes. 
I asked him what position the Socialists would 
take. He paused long and finally answered the 
question with a grave "It depends." There was 
something in the man's face and tone that haunted 
me, that now makes me certain that Liebknecht 
then had a very clear vision of the dark days ahead 
for the socialist movement and for the world. 
What the future holds in store for Liebknecht, 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

no one can tell. It may be predicted with some 
degree of assurance, however, that his activities 
are by no means over. The world, with justice, 
expects much from him in the days that are to 
come. 

The foregoing constitutes but a brief and in- 
adequate sketch of the activities of Liebknecht by 
a personal friend who believes that in him the 
world will recognize one of the fnost heroic figures 
of the present crisis and that the day is near when 
all Germany will proclaim him the man above all 
others who "sowed the seed that freedom men 
might reap," and that not only in Germany. 

A Personal Friend of Karl Liebknecht 



MILITARISM 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF 
MILITARISM. 

Militarism! There are few catch-words which 
are so frequently used to-day. There is scarcely 
another one which signifies something so com- 
plex, many-sided, Protean, or expresses a phe- 
nomenon so interesting and significant in its 
origin and nature, its means and effects — a phe- 
nomenon so deeply rooted in the very nature of 
societies divided in classes, and which yet can 
adopt such extraordinarily multifarious shapes in 
societies of equal structure, all according to the 
physical, political, social, and economic condi- 
tions of states and territories. 



2 MILITARISM 

Militarism is one of the most important and 
energetic manifestations of the life of most so- 
cial orders, because it exhibits in the strongest, 
most concentrated, exclusive manner the na- 
tional, cultural, and class instinct of self-preser- 
vation, that most powerful of all instincts. 

A history of militarism, carried out with fun- 
damental thoroughness, would comprise the very 
essence of the history of human development, lay 
bare its main-springs; and an investigation of capi- 
talistic militarism would bring to light the most 
deeply hidden and delicate root-iibres of capi- 
talism. Again, the history of militarism would 
be the history of the strained relations and jeal- 
ousies between nations and states, arising from 
their desires for political and social power or eco- 
nomic advantage; at the same time it would be 
the history of class-struggles within nations and 
states for the same objects. 

This is not even an attempt to write such a his- 
tory; only some universal historical facts will be 
pointed out. 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 3 

ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF FORMS OF 
SOCIAL DOMINATION. 

In the last analysis the superiority of physical 
force is the decisive factor in social domination. 
In its social aspect such physical force does not 
appear as the greater bodily strength of some in- 
dividuals; it rather presupposes the equality of 
bodily strength of men, taken in the average, su- 
periority thus resting purely with the majority. 
Such a numerical relation does not necessarily cor- 
respond with the numerical relationship existing 
between groups of people having interests op- 
posed to each other. Inasmuch as not everybody 
knows his own real interests, especially not his 
fundamental interests, and inasmuch as not every- 
body knows and recognizes the interests of his 
class as his own individual interests, it is mate- 
rially determined by the extensive and intensive 
development of class-consciousness, which in its 
turn depends upon the mental and moral stage of 
evolution reached by a class. Again, that men- 
tal and moral stage of evolution is determined by 



4 MILITARISM 

the economic position of the various groups of in- 
terests (classes), whilst the social and political 
condition presents itself rather as a consequence 
— as a consequence, it is true, which also has 
strong reactions — as an expression of social domi- 
nation. 

The purely economic superiority also helps to 
cause directly a shifting and confusing of that 
numerical relation, inasmuch as economic pressure 
not only influences the mental and moral stage of 
development and therefore the ability to recog- 
nize class-interest, but also produces a tendency to 
act in opposition to. a class-interest which is more 
or less recognized. That also the political 
machinery provides that class in whose hands it is 
with further means of domination with which to 
"correct" that numerical relationship in favor of 
the ruling group of interests is shown by four in- 
stitutions well known to all — police, law courts, 
schools, and church, which latter must also be 
reckoned among these institutions which the po- 
litical machinery creates in its legislative function 
in order to exploit them for the application of the 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 5 

law and administrative purposes. The first two 
act chiefly by means of threats, deterrents and 
force; the school makes it its business to stop as 
effectively as possible the channels through which 
class-consciousness might find a way to hearts and 
brains; the church has a most effective way in 
providing men with blinkers, arousing their de- 
sires for a make-believe heavenly bliss and ex- 
ploiting their fear of an infernal chamber of 
torture. 

But not even the numerical relation thus altered 
can be considered as deciding the form of social 
domination. An armed man multiplies his physi- 
cal power by means of his weapon. The extent 
of such multiplication depends upon the develop- 
ment of armament, including fortification and 
strategy, the forms of which result mainly from the 
development of armaments. The intellectual and 
economic superiority of one group of interests to 
another transforms itself directly, in consequence 
of the armament or better armament of the su- 
perior class, into a physical superiority and thus 
creates the possibility of a class-conscious majority 



6 MILITARISM 

being completely dominated by a class-conscious 
minority. 

Though class-division is determined by economic 
conditions the relative political power of the 
classes is only in the first line determined by the 
economic condition of the various classes, in the 
second line by numerous intellectual, moral and 
physical means of exercising power, which in their 
turn pass into the hands of the ruling economic 
class by reason of its economic position. All these 
methods of exercising power can not influence the 
continued existence of classes, as that existence is 
safeguarded by a situation which is independent 
of them and which by necessity forces and main- 
tains certain classes (even if these form a 
majority) in economic dependence on other 
classes, which may be a small minority, without 
the class-struggle or any means of political power 
being able to change it.^ THe class-struggle can 
tJius only he a struggle to develop class-consciouS' 

^"In the social production of their life men enter certain 
necessary economic relations which are independent of their 
will, conditions of productions corresponding to a certain stage 
of the development of their material forces of production." — 
Marx. 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 7 

ness, including a readiness for revolutionary action 
and sacrifice in the interest of the class ^ among its 
members^ and a struggle for obtaining those means 
of power which are important for creating or sup' 
pressing class-consciousness^ as well as those 
bodily and intellectual means of power the pos- 
session of which signifies a multiplication of phy- 
sical force. 

All this makes it clear what an important role 
the development of armament plays in social 
struggles. It decides whether it is not, or no 
longer, an economic necessity that a minority 
should continue, at least for a time, to rule over a 
majority against the will of the latter by military 
action, that "most concentrated political action." 
Apart from class-division the evolution of the 
forms of domination is actually everywhere closely 
bound up with the development of armament. 
As long as virtually everybody, even those in the 
most disadvantageous economic position, can pro- 
cure arms of essentially equal value under prac- 
tically the same difficulties, democracy, the reign 
of the majority principle, will as a rule be the 



8 MILITARISM 

political form of the society. That ought to be 
true even in societies divided in economic classes 
if only that one condition mattered. But in the 
natural course of development class-division, the 
result of economic evolution, runs parallel with 
the development of arms (including fortification 
and strategy), the manufacture of arms becoming 
thereby more and more a special skilful profes- 
sion, and, as class rule corresponds as a rule with 
the economic superiority of one class, and the im- 
provement in the manufacture of armament makes 
it continually more difficult and expensive to pro- 
duce arms,^ the manufacture of arms becomes 
gradually a monopoly of the ruling economic 
class, whereby that physical basis of democracy is 
done away with. And then we begin to hear the 
word: Possess and you are in the right. Even 
when a class possessing the political means of 



2 To the arms, properly speaking, to munition and defensive 
implements of all kinds, including lighting arrangements, to 
fortresses and war vessels, are added, for instance, the mili- 
tary means of communication (horses, wagons, bicycles, con- 
struction of roads and bridges, inland navigation, railroads, 
automobiles, telegraphy, wireless telegraphy, telephones), not 
forgetting the telescope, air-ships, photography and war dogs. 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 9 

power loses its economic ascendancy it can at least 
for a time maintain its political rule. 

It need scarcely be explained here that it is thus 
. not only the form and nature of political domina- 
tion which is partly conditioned by the develop- 
ment of armament, but also the form and nature 
of the prevailing class-struggles. 

However, it is not sufficient that all citizens are 
equally armed and carry their arms in order to 
safeguard the continued existence of the rule of 
democracy, for the equal distribution of arms does 
not exclude the possibility, as the events in Swit- 
zerland have proved, that such distribution is 
abolished by a majority which is becoming a 
minority, or even by a minority which is organized 
in a better, more efficient manner. The equal 
arming of the whole population can only endure 
and not be done away with when the -production 
of arms can be carried on universally. 

In his curious Utopia, "The Coming Race," Bul- 
wer described in an ingenious way the democra- 
tizing part which the development of armament 
can play. He imagines a stage of scientific de- 



10 MILITARISM 

velopment at which every citizen, provided with 
an easily procurable little staff charged with a 
mysterious force similar to electricity, is able at 
any moment to produce the most destructive 
effects. Indeed, we may expect science, the easy 
mastering of the most tremendous natural forces 
by man, to reach such a stage, however distant 
that time may be, at which the application of the 
science of murder on the battlefield will become 
an impossibility because it would mean the self- 
destruction of the human race, and at which the 
exploitation of scientific progress is transformed 
again as it were from a plutocratic into a demo- 
cratic, universally human possibility. 

SOME FACTS FROM THE HISTORY OF 
MILITARISM. 

In the lowest civilizations where class-division 
is unknown, arms, as a rule, serve as implements 
of labor. They serve for the acquisition of food 
(for the chase, for digging roots), also as a pro- 
tection against wild animals, as a defence against 
hostile tribes and for attacking the latter. They 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE ii 

are of such primitive nature that everybody can 
procure them easily at any time (stones and sticks, 
spears with flint heads, bows, etc.). The same is 
true of the means of defence. As there is not 
yet any division of labor worth mentioning, — ex- 
cept for the most primitive of all divisions of 
labor, that between man and woman, — all mem- 
bers of the community performing approximately 
the same social function exercised by their respec- 
tive sexes; thus, as there do not yet exist any 
economic or political forms of domination arma- 
ment cannot be the prop of such forms of domi- 
nation within the community. Even if forms of 
domination existed arms could not support them. 
With armament in its primitive stage of develop- 
ment only democratic forms of rule are possible. 

In those lowest civilizations arms can at most 
be used within the community for settling indi- 
vidual conflicts, but a change takes place as soon 
as class-division and the art of manufacturing 
arms develop. The original communism of the 
lower agricultural peoples with their gynarchy 
(rule of women) knows no social, and therefore 



12 MILITARISM 

as a rule, also no political domination of classes. 
In general, militarism can not develop; external 
complications, it is true, force such peoples to be 
prepared for war and produce temporarily even 
military despotism, a very frequent phenomenon 
with pastoral peoples on account of the warlike 
situations they encounter and because they regu- 
larly divide in classes at an earlier time. 

We next remind the reader of the constitution 
of the Greek and Roman armies in which they 
find, according to class-division, a purely military 
hierarchy, organized on the basis of class, the ar- 
mament of each file depending upon the class to 
which the soldier belonged. Let the reader also 
remember the armies of the feudal knights, with 
their following of much worse armed and pro- 
tected squires who, according to Patrice Laroque, 
played rather the part of assistants to the com- 
batants than that of combatants. The reason 
why the rulers in those times allowed and even 
brought about the arming of the lower orders is to 
be sought much less in the small degree of general 
security which the state could offer to the interests 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 13 

of the individual which it recognized (a want of 
security which thus made the arming of all neces- 
sary in a certain sense), than in the necessity of 
arming the nation or state for attack and defence 
against the foreign foe as well as was possible. 
The difference in the armament of the various 
classes of society assured at all times the possi- 
bility of employing the science of arms for the 
maintenance or the establishment of rule. The 
Roman slave wars exhibit this side of the question 
in a remarkable light. 

The subject is also strongly illuminated by the 
German Peasants' War and the wars of the Ger- 
man cities. Among the chief direct causes of the 
unhappy outcome of the German Peasants' War 
must be reckoned the better military equipment of 
the clerico-feudal armies. However, the wars car- 
ried on by the cities in the XlVth century against 
those very armies were successful, not only because 
the art of making fire-arms was in an extraordi- 
narily undeveloped stage as compared with the 
time of the Peasants' War of 1525, but above all 
because of the great economic power of the cities. 



14 MILITARISM 

As locally organized social spheres of interest, 
they concentrated the members of those spheres, 
without any appreciable admixture of elements 
with different interests, in a narrow space; again, 
on account of their construction the cities occu- 
pied at the outset a tactical position of about the 
same importance as the feudal lords possessed, as 
Church and Emperor had in their castles and for- 
tresses (this is likewise an element of military art 
— fortification) ; and, finally, the cities were 
themselves the chief producers of arms. Their 
citizens were indeed the superior representatives 
of the technical arts which annihilated the army 
of the knights.^ 

Particular attention must be paid to a result of 
the study of the Peasants' War and the wars of 
the cities, namely, to the importance of the various 
social classes living either in local separation or 
locally mixed. Where class-division corresponds 
with local division the class-struggle is facilitated, 

3 The Italian development in the XVth century is also of the 
greatest interest in this connection and allures the investigator 
into absorbing studies. It confirms throughout our fundamen- 
tal conception. Cf. Burckhardt, "Kultur der Renaissance in 
Italien," 9th edition. 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 15 

not only because class-consciousness is promoted 
thereby, but also because, from a purely technical 
point of view, the military concentration of the 
members of a class, as well as the production and 
the supply of arms are made easier. That happy 
local grouping of classes has favored all bourgeois 
revolutions ; * it is almost lacking in the case of the 
proletarian revolution.^ 

The armies of mercenaries, which existed up to 
our own time, exhibit, like the question of arma- 
ment, the direct transformation of economic power 
into physical power according to the Mephisto- 
phelian prescription: 

"If I can purchase stallions six 
Are not their powers mine a-plenty*? 
I journey on and am a mighty man 
As if I had legs four and twenty." 

*This also applies to the Russian revolution (of 1905) in 
its first stage. A characteristic instance, among innumerable 
others, is the armed rising in Moscow in December, 1905, the 
astonishing tenacity of which finds an explanation in the 
cooperation of the mass of the urban population with the fight- 
ing revolutionaries who, by the way, were not numerous. The 
tactics of the urban guerilla method, splendidly developed in 
Moscow, will be epochal. 

5 The working together in factories, etc., and the living to- 
gether in the "working-class neighborhood" have however 
to be taken into account. 




MILITARISM 

Together with the further maxim, divide et 
impera^ it is also being followed in establishing 
the so-called elite of an army. On the other 
hand, the example of the Italian condottieri, like 
that of the prsetorian guards of earlier times, 
plainly demonstrates how much political power 
can be wielded through the possession of arms, 
military practice and the art of strategy. The 
mercenary boldly seized the crowns of princes, 
tossed them hither and thither, and became the 
natural candidate for the highest power in the 
state,^ a phenomenon repeatedly witnessed in 
times of excitement and war when military power 
is readily manipulated by individuals, even in 
our own age, e. g., Napoleon and his generals, also 
— Boulanger ! 

The history of the German "Wars of Liber- 
ation" furnishes important information about the 
influence of the external political situation on the 
development of armies and militarism. When, 
after the pitiful failure of the wars of the Coali- 
tion against the French Revolution, the feudal 

« Cf. Burckhardt, I, p. 22. 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 17 

armies of Frederick the Great had been crushed as 
in a mortar by the citizen army of France in 1806, 
the helpless German governments confronted the 
alternatve either to surrender unconditionally to 
the Corsican conqueror or to vanquish him with 
his own weapon, with a citizen army, constituted 
by the general arming of the people. Their in- 
stinct of self-preservation and the spontaneous im- 
pulse of the people forced them to choose the sec- 
ond path. Then began that great period of the 
democratization of Germany, especially Prussia, 
brought about by external pressure, a period in 
which the political, social and economic strains in 
the interior were temporarily alleviated. Money 
and enthusiastic fighters for liberty were wanted. 
The human being increased in value. His social 
function as a creator of values and presumptive 
payer of taxes and his natural physical quality as 
the embodiment of strength, intelligence and en- 
thusiasm gained a decisive importance, and caused 
his value to rise, as is ever the case in times of 
general peril, whilst the influence of class-differen- 
tiation diminished. The Prussian people had 



i8 MILITARISM 

"learned to suppress all strife under the long en- 
dured foreign yoke," to use the jargon of the 
military weekly gazette. As has so often been the 
case, the financial and military questions played a 
revolutionary part. Many economic, social and 
political obstacles were removed. Industry and 
commerce, financially of chief importance, were 
promoted as far as it was possible with the ped- 
dling democratic spirit of Prussia-Germany. 
Even poliitcal liberties were introduced or at least 
promised. The people rose in arms, the storm 
burst forth, the army of Schamhorst and Gnei- 
senau, the army of the general arming of the peo- 
ple chased the "hereditary enemy" across the 
Rhine in the great Wars of Liberation, and pre- 
pared a miserable end for the world conqueror 
who had undermined the France of the Great 
Revolution, though that army was not even the 
democratic institution Schamhorst and Gneisenau 
had wanted to create. The German people, like 
the Moor in "Fiesco," having done their duty, 
duly received the "thanks of the House of the 



NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE 19 

Habsburgs." The Carlsbad resolutions'' fol- 
lowed the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, and 
after the pressure from without had been removed 
and all the demons of reaction had been let loose 
again on the people, one of the most important 
measures of the Metternich ^ system of perjured 
and accursed memory, was the destruction of the 
democratic army of the Wars of Liberation. The 
highly civilized regions of Germany might have 
been ripe for that army, but it collapsed abruptly, 
together with nearly all the fine things the great 
popular rising had brought, under the leaden 
weight of the junker barbarism, having its seat 
east of the Elbe. 

A superficial glance at the development of 

7 Resolutions adopted at a conference of German princes 
and their representatives at Carlsbad, in iSig. These resolu- 
tions concerned stringent police measures against the so-called 
demagogues, especially professors and students who had the 
temerity to remind the German princes of their promises to 
grant constitutions to their peoples, promises made when the 
princes were in great trouble. Those police persecutions 
lasted for a whole generation and found innumerable victims 
among the democratic elements of Germany. The period is 
generally described as the demagogue chase. — Translator. 

8 Metternich, the Austrian statesman, was the head of Ger- 
man and European reaction. This evil genius of Germany 



20 MILITARISM 

armies shows the strong dependence of the consti- 
tution and size of an army not merely on social 
organization, but also, and in far greater measure, 
on the development of armament. The revolu- 
tionizing effect which, for instance, the invention 
of fire-arms had in that direction is one of the 
most conspicuous facts in the history of war. 

dominated the affairs of Germany until 1848, when he 
tremblingly fled to London before the infuriated people of 
Vienna. — ^Translator. 



II. 

CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM. 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

Militarism is not specifically a capitalistic insti- 
tution. It is, on the contrary, an institution pecul- 
iar and essential to all societies divided in classes, 
of which capitalist society is the last. It is true 
that capitalism develops, like every other society 
divided in classes, a kind of militarism peculiar to 
itself,^ for militarism is in its nature a means to 
an end, or to several ends, which differ with the 
kind of the society and which are to be attained 
in various ways according to the different charac- 
ters of the societies. That fact appears not only 
in the constitution of the army, but also in the 
remaining substance of militarism which mani- 



1 Bernstein [the prominent German Socialist leader] 
wrongly stated in Vie socialiste of June 5, 1905, that modern 
military institutions were only the heritage of the more or less 
feudal monarchy. 

21 



22 MILITARISM 

fests itself in the tasks militarism has to accom- 
plish. 

Best adapted to the capitalistic stage of de- 
velopment is the army built on universal military 
service which, though an army constituted by the 
people, is not an army of the people, but an army 
against the people, or becomes increasingly con- 
verted into such a one. 

Now it appears in the shape of a standing 
army, now as a militia. The standing army,^ 
which is likewise not an institution peculiar to 
capitalism, appears as its most developed, and 
even its normal form; this will be shown in the 
following pages. 

''militarism for abroad," navalism and 

colonial militarism. possibilities 

of war and disarmament. 

The army of the capitalist order of society 
serves a double purpose, like the army of the other 
social systems. 

2 One need only consider Russia where, however, entirely 
peculiar circumstances which did not arise from interior con- 
ditions helped to bring about the result. Standing armies 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 23 

It is, in the first place, a national institution 
destined for attack abroad or for the protection 
against a danger coming from abroad, in short, 
designed for international complications or, to use 
a military catch-phrase, against the foreign enemy. 

That function has in no way been done away 
with by more recent developments. For capi- 
talism war is indeed, in Moltke's phrase, "a part 
of God's world order." ^ It is true that there 
exists in Europe itself at least a tendency to elim- 
inate certain causes of war, and the probability of 
a war originating in Europe itself decreases more 
and more, in spite of Alsace-Lorraine, the anxiety 
about the trio, Clemenceau, Pichon, Picquart, in 

resting on a basis different from that of universal military- 
service are, for instance, the mercenary armies. In the Italian 
cities of the XVth century militias were also known (Burck- 
hardt, p. 327). 

3^ In his well-known letter to Bluntschli (December, 1880) 
we read: "Eternal peace is a dream, and not even a beau- 
tiful one, and war is a part of God's world order. In it are 
developed the noblest virtues of man, courage and abnega- 
tion, dutifulness and self-sacrifice at the risk of life. With- 
out war the world would sink into materialism." A few 
months earlier Moltke had written: "Every war is a national 
misfortune" (Collected Works, V, p. 193 and p. 200), and 
in 1841 he even wrote in an article that appeared in the Augs- 
burger Allgemeine Zeitung: "We confess openly to be in 
favor of the much derided idea of a general European peace." 



24 MILITARISM 

spite of the Eastern Question, in spite of pan- 
islamism, and in spite of the revolution going on 
in Russia. In their place, however, new and 
highly dangerous causes of friction have arisen in 
consequence of the desires for commercial and 
political expansion* cherished by the so-called 
"civilized nations," desires which are mainly re- 
sponsible for the Eastern Question and pan-islam- 
ism, and in consequence of world politics, espe- 
cially colonial politics which, as Chancellor 
Biilow frankly recognized in the Reichstag, on 
November 14, 1906,^ contains innumerable pos- 
sibilities ^ of conflict and forces to the front ever 
more vigorously two other forms of militarism — 
navalism and colonial militarism. We Germans 
can tell a story of that ! 

*The value of the entire foreign trade of the world rose, 
according to Hiibler's tables, from 75,224 million marks in 
1891 to 109,000 million marks in 1905. 

^ "What complicates our situation to-day and renders it 
more difficult are our oversea pursuits and interests." 

6 Moltke's views in this respect were highly fantastic. Ac- 
cording to him the times when wars were resolved upon by 
cabinets were indeed past, but he considers the political party 
leaders to be wicked and dangerous provokers of war. The 
party leaders and — the stock exchange! It is true that here 
and there he has a deeper view of things (Collected Works, 
3, pp. I, 126, 135, 138). 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 25 

Navalism^ militarism on sea, is the natural 
brother of land militarism and shows all its repul- 
sive and vicious traits. It is in a still greater 
degree than land militarism is at present not only 
an effect, but also a cause of international dan- 
gers, of the danger of a world war. 

Some good folk and deceivers want to make us 
believe that the strained relations between Ger- 
many and England '^ are merely the result of some 
misunderstandings, agitations of mischievous jour- 
nalists, the braggings of unskilful diplomatists; 
but we know better. We know that these strained 
relations are a necessary result of the increasing 
economic competition between Germany and Eng- 
land in the world's markets, a direct result of the 
unbridled capitalistic development and inter- 
national competition. The Spanish-American' 
War for Cuba, Italy's Abyssinian War, England's - 
South African War, the Chinese-Japanese War, 
the Chinese adventure of the Great Powers, the 
Russian-Japanese War, all of them, however dif- 



7 Characterized by that fantastic abortion, entitled, "The 
Invasion of igio." 



26 MILITARISM 

f erent their special causes and the conditions from 
which they sprung might have been, yet exhibit 
the one great common characteristic feature of 
wars of expansion. And if we remember the 
strained relations between England and Russia on 
account of Thibet, Persia and Afghanistan, the 
disagreements between Japan and the United 
States in the winter of 1906, and finally the 
Morocco conflict of glorious memory with the 
Franco-Spanish cooperation of December, 1906,^ 
we must recognize that the capitalistic policy oi^ 
colonization and expansion has placed numerous' 
mines under the edifice of world peace, mines 
whose fuses are in many hands and which can ex- 
plode very easily and unexpectedly.^ It is cer- 
tainly thinkable that a time may come when the 
division of the world has progressed to such an 
extent that a policy of placing all possible colo- 
nial possessions in trust for the colonial empires 

s On account of the quarrel about Morocco France spent, in 
1906, far more than a hundred million for the military protec- 
tion of her eastern frontiers. 

® About the alleged, not yet fully explained plan of Semler, 
the Reichstag representative of the Hamburg shipowners, to 
capture Fernando Po in the Jameson manner, see the budgetary 
debates of the Reichstag of December, 1906. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 27 

becomes feasible, thus eliminating colonial compe- 
tition, as has been accomplished in regard to pri- 
vate capitalist competition to a certain extent by 
the combines and trusts. But that is a distant 
possibility which the economic and national rise of 
China alone may defer for an incalculable space of 
time. 

All the alleged plans for disarmament are thus 
seen to be for the present nothing but foolery, 
phrase-making and attempts at deception. The 
fact that the Czar was the chief originator of the 
comedy at the Hague puts the true stamp on 
all of them. 

Indeed, in our own days the bubble of an al- 
leged English disarmament burst in a ridiculous 
fashion. Secretary for War Haldane, the alleged 
promoter of those intentions, came out in strong 
words as an opponent of each and every reduction 
of the active military forces and showed himself 
as a true military hotspur,^^ whilst at the same 



10 That is not disproved because he declared for the time 
being against universal military service, which is regretted by 
the Kreuzzeitung [the junker organ], of November 29, 1906, 
because, according to the paper, universal service would edu- 



28 MILITARISM 

time the Anglo-French military convention ap- 
peared above the horizon. Moreover, at the very 
hour when preparations were being made for the 
second "Peace Conference," Sweden increased her 
fleet, America ^^ and Japan saw their military bud- 
gets mount higher and higher, and the Clemenceau 
government in France demanded an increase of 
208 millions,^^ dwelt upon the necessity of a 
strong army and navy, the Hamburger Nachrich' 
ten [an important semi-official German news- 
paper] was describing the unshakeable faith in the 
holy savior Militarism as the quintessence of the 
feeling dominating Germany's ruling classes, and 
the German people were treated by their govern- 
ment to increased military demands ^^ which were 



cate the English people into a better understanding of the 
seriousness of war. In Germany, of course, universal mili- 
tary service has only the importance to force the people to 
make sacrifices in blood and money, in conformity with the 
will of the noble knights of the Kreuzzeitung, whilst the de- 
cision about peace and war rests with those for whom the 
seriousness of war exists least. They can even appreciate 
democracy for abroad! — Concerning the strong tendency in 
England and America towards a universal militia, see p. 51. 
^1 Cf. p. 51 and Roosevelt's message of December 4, 1906. 

12 Chiefly motivated by the Morocco conflict. 

13 Twenty-four and three-fourths millions for the navy, 51 
millions for the army, 7 millions for interest — a total increase 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 29 

greedily grasped at even by our Liberals/* Such 
facts give us a measure of the naivete displayed by 
the French Senator, d'Estournelles de Constant, a 
member of the Hague Tribunal, in an essay on 
the limitation of armaments.^^ Indeed, in the 
imagination of this political dreamer it needs not 
even the proverbial swallow to make the summer 
of disarmament, a simple sparrow will do. After 
that it is almost refreshing to encounter the honest 
brutality with which the great powers at the con- 
ference dropped Mr. Stead's proposals and re- 
fused even to place the question of disarmament 
on the agenda of the second conference. 

of some 83 million marks as compared with the budget of 
1906-7. Fine prospects of further extravagant naval arma- 
ments were held out by an evidently inspired article that ap- 
peared in the Reichshote, on December 21, 1906. To all that 
must be added the enormous expenses for colonial wars (454 
millions for the China Expedition, 490 millions already for 
the rebellion in Southwest Africa, 2 millions for the rebellion 
in East Africa, etc.) ; the question of footing those bills led, 
in December, 1906, to a conflict and the dissolution of the 
Reichstag. 

1* See Berliner Tageblaff of October 27, 1906. Note above 
all the notorious resolution handed in by Ablass, December 
13, 1906, and the Liberal platform for the Reichstag elections 
of January 25, 1907. 

1-5 La Revue, October i, 1906. The "actual results achieved" 
by the movement for disarmament, are a well preserved se- 
cret of the editorial board of the Revue. 



30 MILITARISM 

A few more remarks must be made about the 
third offspring of capitalism on the military side, 
viz., colonial militarism. The colonial army (by 
this is meant not the colonial militia, ^^ as planned 
for German Southwest Africa, still less the en- 
tirely different militia of the almost independent 
British colonies) is of extraordinarily great im- 
portance for England, and its importance is also 
increasing for the other civilized countries. 
Whilst for England it not only fulfils the task of 
oppressing and keeping in check the colonial "in- 
terior enemy," i. e., the natives of the colonies, but 
also constitutes a weapon against the exterior colo- 
nial enemy, Russia, for instance, it serves the other 
colonizing powers, especially America and Ger- 
many, often under the names of "Schutztruppe" 
(protective troops) or foreign legion, ^^ almost ex- 

16 Germany's colonial expenditure is in a greatly preponder- 
ating measure of a military nature, even according to Dern- 
burg's memorial of October, 1906, in spite of all his cooking 
of accounts. 

i'^ Since December 31, igoo, France possesses a real colonial 
army which has brought her the saddest disappointments. 
See the Hamburg Correspondent, December 7, 1906 (No. 
621), also note 18 on next page and p. 72. In Germany they 
are busily engaged in creating a colonial army. We are ap- 
proaching it at the double quick. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 31 

clusively for the first named purpose, that of 
driving the miserable natives to slave in the bag- 
nios for capitalism, and to shoot and cut them 
down and starve them without pity whenever they 
attempt to protect their country against the 
foreign conquerors and extortioners. The colo- 
nial army, which frequently consists of the scum 
of the European population, ^^ is the most brutal 
and abominable of all the tools employed by our 
capitalistic states. There is hardly a crime which 
colonial militarism and savage tropical brutality 
[Tropenkoller^ the Germans call it], directly cul- 
tivated by it, have not produced/^ The names of 
Tippelskirch, Woermann, Podbielski, Leist, Weh- 
lau, Peters, Ahrenberg, and others testify and 
prove it for Germany, too. They are the fruit by 
which the nature of the policy of colonization can 

18 See Peroz, France et Japan en Indochine; Fanin, I'armee 
coloniale; E. Reclus, in his Patriotisme et Colonisation; 
Daumig, Schlachtopfer des Militarismus, in Neue Zeit, vol. 
99/00, p. 365, about the bataillons d'Afrique, p. 369. Regard- 
ing Germany see the speech of Roeren, member of the 
Reichstag, of December 3, 1906, Reichstag debates. 

19 Military punishment, too, here adopts a peculiarly brutal 
form. About France's foreign legion and bataillons d'Afrique 
see Ddumigj cited above ; about the abolition of the "binbiri," 
p. 53. 



32 MILITARISM 

be known, that colonial policy which, pretend- 
ing ^^ to spread Christianity of civilization or to 
protect national honor, piously practises usury and 
fraud for the advantage of capitalists interested 
in colonies; which murders and violates defence- 
less human beings, bums down the possessions of 
the defenceless, robbing and pillaging them, 
mocking and disgracing Christianity and civiliza- 



20 This hypocritical and, at the same time, shamefaced ex- 
cuse is now being dropped with frank cynicism; see the arti- 
cle, signed by G. B., in the monthly magazine, Die deutschen 
Kolonien (October, 1906), and the remark made by Strantz 
at the pan-German convention (September, 1906), where he 
said: "In the colonies we don't want to convert people into 
Christians; they are to work for us. This humanitarian soft- 
headedness is downright ridiculous. German sentimentality 
has deprived us of a man like Peters." Again, Heinrich 
Hartert wrote in the Tag, December 21, 1906, that it is "the 
duty of the missions ... to adapt themselves to given cir- 
cumstances"; but they had succeeded "in frequently becom- 
ing a nuisance to the commercial man." It is at this point 
that the principal friction arises between the German Clerical 
Party and the Government in regard to colonial policy; this 
alone explains the furious fight entered upon in December, 
1906, by the merchant Dernburg against the so-called col- 
lateral government of the Clerical Party. — For America the 
Kreuzzeitung (September 29, 1906) preaches: "The simple 
extermination of whole tribes of Indians is so inhuman and 
unchristian that it cannot be defended under any circum- 
stances, especially as it is in no way a question of existence 
for the Americans." But where it is such a question whole 
tribes may be "exterminated" even by the believer in Christian 
charity — according to the views of the colonial Christian. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 33 

tion.^^ Even the fame of a Cortez or a Pizarro 
fades before India and Tongking, the Congo, Ger- 
man Southwest Africa and the Philippines. 

THE PROLETARIAT AND WAR. 

If the function of militarism was above defined 
as being a national one directed against the for- 
eign enemy it must not be understood to mean 
that it is a function answering the interests, 
welfare and wishes of the capitalistically gov- 
erned and exploited peoples. The proletariat of 
the whole world can not expect any profit from 
the policies which make necessary the "militarism 
for abroad"; its interests are most sharply op- 
posed to such policies. Directly or indirectly 
those policies serve the exploiting interests of the 
ruling classes of capitalism. They are policies 
which prepare more or less skilfully, the way for 
the world-wide expansion of the wildly anarchical 
mode of production and the senseless and mur- 
derous competition of capitalism, in which process 

21 See the memorable debates of the German Reichstag be- 
tween November 28 and December 4, 1906, where the " abscess 
was lanced." 



34 MILITARISM 

all the duties of civilized man towards the less 
developed peoples are flung aside; and yet noth- 
ing is really attained except an insane imperiling 
of the whole existence of our civilization in conse- 
quence of the warlike world complications that 
are conjured up. The working-class, too, wel- 
come the immense economic developments of our 
days. But they also know that this economic de- 
velopment could be carried on peacefully without 
the mailed fist, without militarism and navalism, 
without the trident being in our hand and with- 
out the barbarities of our colonial system, if only 
sensibly managed communities were to carry it on 
according to international understandings and in 
conformity with the duties and interests of civil- 
ization. They knew that our world policy largely 
explains itself as an attempt to fight down and 
confuse forcibly and clumsily the social and politi- 
cal home problems confronting the ruling classes, 
in short, as an attempt at a policy of deceptions 
and misleadings such as Napoleon III. was a mas- 
ter of. They know that the enemies of the work- 
ing-class love to make their pots boil over the 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 35 

fires of narrow-minded jingoism; that the fear of 
war in 1887, unscrupulously engineered by Bis- 
marck, did excellent service to the most dangerous 
forces of reaction; that according to a nice little 
plan, lately revealed,^ ^ and hatched by a number 
of highly placed personages, the Reichstag suf- 
frage was to be filched from the German people in 
the excitement of jingoism, "after the return of a 
victorious army." They know that the advan- 
tages of the economic development which those 
policies attempt to exploit, especially all the ad- 
vantages of our colonial policies, flow into the 
ample pockets of the exploiting class, of capi- 
talism, the arch-enemy of the proletariat. They 
know that the wars the ruling classes engage in for 
their own purposes demand of the working-class 
the most terrible sacrifice of blood and treasure, ^^ 
for which they are recompensed, after the work 
has been done, by miserable pensions, beggarly 
grants to war invalids, street organs and kicks. 



22 See Hamburger Nachrichten, November 3, 1906. 

23 The number of the victims of the wars between 1799 and 
1904 (excluding the Russo-Japanese War) is estimated at 
about 15,000,000 men killed. 



36 MILITARISM 

They know that after every war a veritable mud- 
volcano of Hunnic brutality and baseness sends 
its floods over the nations participating in it, re- 
barbarizing all civilization for years.^* The 
worker knows that the fatherland for which he 
is to fight is not his fatherland; that there is only 
one real enemy for the proletariat of every coun- 
try — the capitalist class who oppresses and ex- 
ploits the proletariat; that the proletariat of every 
country is by its most vital interests closely bound 
to the proletariat of every other country; that all 
national interests recede before the common inter- 
ests of the international proletariat; and that the 
international coalition of exploiters and oppressors 
must be opposed by the international coalition of 
the exploited and oppressed. He knows that the 
proletarians, if they were to be employed in a war, 
would be led to fight against their own brethren 
and the members of their own class, and thus 
against their own interests. The class-conscious 
proletarian therefore not only frowns upon that 

24 Cf. Moltke, p. 24, note 6, of this book, and "Moltke's 
Collected Works," II, p. 288. In his opinion war is supposed 
to promote virtue and efficiency, especially moral energy. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 37 

international purpose of the army and the entire 
capitalist policy of expansion, he is fighting them 
earnestly and with understanding. To the pro- 
letariat falls the chief task of fighting militarism 
in that direction, too, to the utmost, and it is more 
and more becoming conscious of that task, which 
is shown by the international congresses; by the 
exchange of protestations of solidarity between 
the German and French Socialists at the outbreak 
of the Franco-German War of 1870, between the 
Spanish and American Socialists at the outbreak 
of the war about Cuba, between the Russian and 
Japanese Socialists at the outbreak of the war in 
eastern Asia in 1904; and by the resolution to de- 
clare a general strike in case of war between 
Sweden and Norway, adopted by the Swedish 
Social Democrats. It was further shown by the 
parliamentary attitude of the German Social 
Democracy towards the war credits of 1870 and 
during the Morocco conflict, as also by the atti- 
tude taken up by the class-conscious proletariat 
towards intervention in Russia. 



38 MILITARISM 

FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF "MILITARISM 
FOR home" and its PURPOSE. 

Militarism does not only serve for defence and 
attack against the foreign enemy; it has a second 
task,^^ one which is being brought out ever more 
clearly with the growing accentuation of class an- 
tagonism, defining ever more clearly the form and 
nature of militarism, viz., that of protecting the 
existing state of society, that of being a pillar of 
capitalism and all reactionary forces in the war of 
liberation engaged in by the working-class. Here 
it shows itself purely as a weapon in the class 
struggle, a weapon in the hands of the ruling 
classes, serving, in conjunction with the police and 
law-courts, school and church, the purpose of ob- 
structing the development of class-consciousness 
and of securing, besides, at all costs to a minority 
the dominating position in the state and the lib- 
erty of exploiting their fellow-men, even against 
the enlightened will of the majority of the people. 

2!5 That task of bolstering up the existing interior order of 
things devolves upon militarism not only in the capitalist 
order of society, but in all societies based upon class-division. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 39 

This is modem militarism, which attempts 
nothing less than squaring the circle, which arms 
the people against the people itself; which, by try- 
ing with all means to force upon social division an 
artificial division according to ages, makes bold to 
turn the workman into an oppressor and an enemy, 
into a murderer of members of his own class and 
his friends, of his parents, sisters and brothers and 
children, into a murderer of his own past and 
future; which pretends to be democratic and des- 
potic, enlightened and mechanical, popular and 
anti-popular at the same time. 

It must, however, not be forgotten that mili- 
tarism can also turn the point of its sword against 
the interior national, and even the interior ^^ re- 
ligious ^'enemy" (in Germany, for instance, 
against the Poles,^'^ Alsatians and Danes), and 
can moreover be employed in <!;onflicts among the 
non-proletarian classes; that militarism is a highly 
polymorphous phenomenon, capable of many 



26 See the struggle between the French state and church dur- 
ing the conflict of December, 1906. 

27 See the disorders during the election in Upper Silesia in 
1903. ' 



40 MILITARISM 

changes; and that the Prusso-German militarism 
has attained a peculiarly flourishing state in con- 
sequence of the peculiar semi-absolutist, feudal- 
bureaucratic conditions of Germany. This 
Prusso-German militarism is endowed with all the 
bad and dangerous qualities of any form of capi- 
talist militarism, so that it is best suited to serve 
as a paradigm for showing militarism in its pres- 
ent stage, in its forms, means and effects. As 
nobody has as yet succeeded, to use a Bismarckian 
phrase, in imitating our Prussian lieutenants, 
nobody has as yet been fully able to imitate our 
Prusso-German militarism, which has not only 
become a state within the state, but positively a 
state above the state. 

Let us first consider the army systems of some 
other countries. In doing so we must take into 
consideration not only the army proper, but also 
the constabulary and police forces, which fre- 
quently appear to be merely special military or- 
ganizations for everyday use against the interior 
enemy, but betray their military origin by their 
very violence and brutality. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 41 



ARMY SYSTEMS OF SOME FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 

We encounter peculiar forms in the army sys- 
tems of countries such as England and America, 
Switzerland and Belgium. 

Great Britain ^^ has a mercenary army ("regu- 
lar army"), a militia with a mounted yeomanry; 
besides, the so-called Volunteers, a force voluntar- 
ily recruited which, on the whole, is unpaid and 
numbered 245,000 men in 1905. The standing 
army, including the militia (in which the furnish- 
ing of substitutes is permitted) numbered z[44,ooo 
men in 1905, of whom however only some 162,000 
were stationed in England. For Ireland there 
exists, moreover, a militarily organized police 
force of some 12,000 men. The standing army is 
largely employed abroad, especially in India, 



2S Since the above was written great changes have taken 
place in the army system of Great Britain. During the world 
war the mercenary army has disappeared and a conscript 
army has taken its place. Moreover, in the years immediately 
preceding the war Great Britain's volunteer forces underwent 
great changes in composition and name. The militia, too, 
ceased to exist, either in name or in fact, after 1908. [Trans- 
lator.] 



42 MILITARISM 

where two-thirds of the army of almost 23O5OOO ^^ 
men consists of natives. The colonies have, as a 
rule, their own militias and volunteer forces. 
The relation between Great Britain's home and 
colonial militarism is characterized by the mili- 
tary budget, which, in 1897, was about 360 mil- 
lion marks for the home country and about 510 
million marks for India. To this must be added 
the immense fleet, with crews and marines num- 
bering almost 200,000 men. 

The army system of the United States is a mix- 
ture of standing army and militia. The army, 
which is made up by recruitings^ and is by law 
limited to a maximum strength of 100,000 men, 
numbers in times of peace, according to the en- 
listed strength of 1905, 61,000 men (on October 
15, 1906, including the Philippine Scouts, 67,253 
men), among them 3,800 officers, mostly educated 
at the military academy at West Point. In the 
same year the militia numbered some 111,000 

29 In 1905-6, 229,820. In the Native States 136,837 soldiers 
in 1903. 

20 Recruiting is becoming ever more difficult, and the per- 
centage of alien recruits is growing, a fact that worries the 
American government. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 43 

men. The militia is organized on a fairly demo- 
cratic basis. In times of peace it is under the 
control of the governors of the various states, and 
its armament and training is not in accordance 
with modern efficiency. Besides, an important 
part is played by the police force, frequently or- 
ganized on a military basis. 

Of quite an original kind is another institution 
which, considered in its formal aspect, does not 
fall within the frame of this chapter, but which, 
however, must not be left unmentioned in this 
connection on account of the function it performs. 
In all the capitalist countries we find the gun-men 
of the employers, even if, in some cases, they be 
only strike-breakers armed by the employers. 
(This is no rare occurrence in Switzerland and 
France, for instance, and as to Germany we refer 
the reader to the Hamburg ship-builders' strike 
and the incidents at Nuremberg in 1906). But 
the American capitalists have at all times at their 
disposal such a band of gun-men of prime quality 
in the shape of the armed Pinkerton detectives. 
Finally, taking into consideration some 30,000 



44 MILITARISM 

men in the American navy, in 1905, we see that 
the United States, too, furnishes a choice collec- 
tion of the main forms of the armed forces of the 
state. * 

In Switzerland there existed until lately a real 
people's army, a general arming of the people. 
Every Swiss citizen, able to bear arms, had his gun 
and ammunition continually in his house. That 
was the army of democracy of which Gaston 
Moch treats in his well-known book. Switzer- 
land enjoying an international guarantee equal to 
that of Belgium, it was only natural that in this 
country "militarism for abroad" should assume 
and retain a particularly mild character, a result 
to which numerous other circumstances contrib- 
uted their share. But the "militarism for home" 
changed with the accentuation of class antagon- 
ism. The fact that the proletariat possessed arms 
and ammunition was increasingly felt, by the capi- 
talist class that wanted to dominate, to be an im- 
pediment to its liberty to exploit and oppress and 
even a danger to its existence. So, in September, 
1899, they began to disarm the people by taking 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 45 

its cartridges away and endeavoring at the same 
time to develop with continually increasing vigor 
the existing rudiments of militarism in the direc- 
tion of the institutions of the great military 
powers. Attempts were made to transform suc- 
cessively the active portions of the army into a 
willing instrument of class domination by all the 
means employed by those military powers. In 
that way the celebrated Swiss militia developed 
more and more the repellant traits which have 
made all standing armies a disgrace to civilization. 
Nothing has been changed by the resolution on 
the employment of soldiers in strikes which was 
passed by the National Council, on December 21, 
1906, in connection with the law on military or- 
ganization.^^ 

Because of her neutrality, Belgium's demand 
for soldiers for her standing army is considerably 
smaller (by about one-half) than her "stock" of 
material for soldiering. On that account the sys- 
tem of universal military service is modified by a 
draft system (drawing lots) and by the substitute 

31 See p. 151. 



46 MILITARISM 

system, which latter deeply influences the charac- 
ter of the army. Naturally, only the well-to-do 
are able to furnish substitutes, and they as nat- 
urally make the widest use of it. At first that sys- 
tem of furnishing substitutes, which was formerly 
so general, may not have been of any special polit- 
ical significance, but in Belgium it has led to a 
result very serious for the ruling class, as the 
country possesses a numerous proletariat and the 
percentage of workmen is very great among the 
men liable to military service and drawn by lot. 
Even that portion of the proletarian Belgian army 
which did not consist of class-conscious prole- 
tarians and proletarians ready to risk all, so 
rapidly succumbed to the anti-militarist propa- 
ganda that for years past it has not had any value 
as a weapon in the hands of the ruling class 
against the interior enemy and is no longer used as 
such. But they found a way out of the diffi- 
culty. From former times there existed an insti- 
tution, called the civic guard. To the civic guard 
belong those who have drawn a lucky number and 
have furnished substitutes, but only if they can 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 47 

buy their own uniforms and arms, a condition al- 
most excluding the poorer population. It used to 
be nothing but a fancy-dress parade; its members 
were mostly Liberals, its organization, democratic. 
Members of the civic guard kept their arms at 
home, elected their own officers, etc. A change 
was brought about in consequence of the increas- 
ing untrustworthiness of the standing army. The 
administration and management of the civic guard 
were taken out of the hands of the municipalities 
and transferred to those of the government, the 
democratic institutions were abolished, and the 
arms were taken away from the individuals and 
locked away in the depots of the military admin- 
istration. A fairly rigorous system of military 
drill was introduced, and the training of the civic 
guard was confided to the most objectionable 
characters among the former officers of the stand- 
ing army. Men between the ages of 20 and 30 
have to train no less than three nights a week and 
on half of a Sunday every two weeks, and if for- 
merly those military exercises reminded one of the 
happy-go lucky functions of our German civic sol- 



48 MILITARISM 

diers of olden days, they are now carried out under 
a sharp control and punctuality is enforced by 
punishments. It is to be noted that this reorgan- 
ization of the civic guard has only taken place in 
communities of more than 20,000 inhabitants, 
whilst in the other places the civic guard has re- 
mained a ridiculous pretence. That fact, too, 
marks the civic guard to be a special force of the 
government in the struggle against the "interior 
enemy." Excluding the military police, the 
standing army numbered, in 1905, about 46.000 
men; the active civic guard numbered about 
44,000 men, almost as many. 

Belgium thus possesses an army against the ex- 
terior, and a special army against the interior 
enemy, an exquisite arrangement which, as the em- 
ployment of the civic guard during the late suf- 
frage struggles and strikes has proved, renders and 
will continue to render good service to the capi- 
talist regime in Belgium. 

In addition, there is in Belgium the constabu- 
lary or military police, who have simply to per- 
form military tasks in war as well as during strikes 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 49 

and riots. They are very numerous and spread 
all over the country, of great mobility, and can be 
concentrated, shifted and mobilized at a moment's 
notice; at Tervueren, near Brussels, they have 
general barracks for their flying brigade, and they 
swarm out during strikes and such like move- 
ments all over the country like a flight of wasps. 
Most of them are former non-commissioned offi- 
cers of the army, they are well paid, excellently 
armed, in short, an elite force. Whilst the civic 
guard is as if created for its task in the class-strug- 
gle, because it represents nothing less than a spe- 
cial military mobilization of the capitalist bour- 
geoisie, which is well aware of its interests, the 
"watch-dogs" of capitalism, organized in the con- 
stabulary, play their part no less efficiently for the 
present, according to the rule that they must play 
the tune called for by him who pays the piper. 

Japan^ a country in about the same capitalist- 
feudal stage of development as Germany, has in 
spite of her insular position, which is similar to 
that of England, and in consequence of her 
strained foreign relations, of late become even 



so MILITARISM 

from a military point of view a veritable counter- 
part of Germany, except perhaps that her troops 
are given a more serviceable war training. 

CONCLUSIONS. RUSSIA. 

It follows from all this that the size and the 
particular character of the organization of an 
army accommodate themselves to the international 
situation, to the function the army has as regards 
the exterior enemy. The international tension is 
driving states (even those which are not yet capi- 
talist and which compete with and have to protect 
themselves against the capitalist states) to train 
alt citizens capable of bearing arms and to adopt 
the most rigorous form of military organization, 
the standing conscript army. This can be con- 
siderably relaxed by natural causes as, for in- 
stance, by the insular position of Great Britain or 
the comparatively insular situation of the United 
States, and by artificial political means as, for in- ' 
stance, the neutralization of Switzerland and the 
states of the Low Countries. But the function of 
"militarism for home," against the interior enemy. 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 51 

militarism as a weapon in the class-struggle, is an 
ever necessary accompanying feature of capitalist 
development, and even Gaston Moch regards the 
"re-establishment of order" as a "legitimate func- 
tion of a people's army." The reason why "mili- 
tarism for home" exhibits forms greatly differing 
from one another explains itself simply by the 
fact that such militarism has hitherto had a more 
national purpose, the fulfilment of which was not 
so much influenced by international competition; 
that therefore it can give much more consideration 
to national peculiarities. However, England and 
also America (a country in which the standing 
army was increased from 27,000 to about 61,000 
men from 1896 to 1906, where the number of men 
in the war navy was doubled, the war budget 
multiplied by two and a half and the navy budget 
by three in the same space of time, and where Mr. 
Taft asked for 100 millions more for 1907)' are 
being increasingly pushed into the paths of the 
militarism of the European continent. This is 
certainly caused in the first line by changes in the 
international situation and the requirements of 



52 MILITARISM 

jingo and imperialist world policy, but in the sec- 
ond line quite unmistakeably by changes in the 
interior tension, the intensification of the class- 
struggle. It is scarcely possible that the militar- 
istic velleities of the British war secretary, Hal- 
dane, in September, 1906, have only a temporal 
relation to the energetic political activity of the 
British working-class. The propensity to intro- 
duce universal military training of the Swiss kind, 
which for the time being has been repulsed in Eng- 
land in spite of the strong agitation in favor of 
such training and which in the United States 
found significant expression in Mr. Roosevelt's 
message of December 4, 1906, is not a symptom of 
progress. It signifies, in spite of all said to the 
contrary, a strengthening of militarism as com- 
pared to its present condition, and is a station on 
the precipitous road leading to a standing army, 
as the example of Switzerland proves. 

On account of the great multiplicity of possible 
combinations between the factors determining the 
extent and nature of the special requirements for 
protection against the exterior and interior enemy, 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 53 

militarism shows unmistakeably a pronounced 
multiformity and transmutability. But that 
transmutability is always kept within the limits 
prescribed by the absolutely essential capitalistic 
purpose of militarism. Nevertheless, develop- 
ment may temporarily take directly opposite 
roads. While France, for example, under Pic- 
quart, is earnestly attacking the problem of greatly 
reducing the training period of her reserve and 
territorial troops, reforming the "biribiri" and 
abolishing separate military jurisdiction, the presi- 
dent of the German central military court, von 
Massow, quitted the service in the fall of 1906, 
because the military command (the Prussian war 
ministry) had on the strength of legal interpre- 
tation formally invaded the independence of the 
military courts, an independence which had indeed 
already received a curious construction by the dis- 
ciplining of the judges acting in the Bilse case. 
French conditions are almost exclusively due to 
the prevailing anti-clericalism; clericalism has an 
important pillar in the army; the government 
needs the help of the proletariat for its anti-cleri- 



54 MILITARISM 

cal policy. Such a combination is of course not 
of eternal duration, nor has it sprung from a real, 
lasting tendency of evolution. It results from a 
constellation, transient in its nature, and is quite 
compatible, as has been proved, with an energetic 
fight against anti-militarism. 

From these points of view an interesting case 
is furnished by Russia which has been forced to 
adopt universal military service on account of her 
intensely strained foreign relations, and which as 
an Asiatic despotic state is confronted by an in- 
terior discord without example. The interior 
enemy of Czarism is not only the proletariat, but 
also the immense mass of the peasantry and the 
bourgeoisie, and even a large portion of the no- 
bility. Ninety-nine percent, of the Russian sol- 
diers belong to classes that are the arch-enemies of 
the Czar's despotism. The development of class- 
consciousness is extremely hampered by the low 
state of education, national and religious antagon-' 
isms and the clashes of economic and social inter- 
ests ; further by the greater or smaller pressure ex- 
ercised by the widely ramified bureaucratic ap- 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 55 

paratus, by the unfavorable arrangement of politi- 
cal districts, the insufficiently developed means of 
communication, and other things. By a cun- 
ningly devised system of elite forces, like the con- 
stabulary and, above all, the Cossacks, who have 
been positively changed into a special social class 
by means of good pay and other material rewards, 
large political privileges and the establishment of 
semi-socialist Cossack communities, and are thus 
artificially bound to the despotic regime, Czar- 
ism attempts to secure a sufficiently strong band 
of faithful retainers to fight down the unrest 
which has penetrated deeply into the ranks of the 
army. In addition to these "watch-dogs of 
Czarism" there are the Circassians ^^ and other 
barbarian populations living in the empire of the 
knout who, for instance, were let loose upon the 
land like a pack of wolves during the counter- 
revolution in the Baltic Province, and all the other 
armed beneficiaries of Czarism whose name is 
legion, the police and their accomplices, as well 

32 Even Sheriff von Sievers-Roemershof writes of the 
"blood-thirsty Circassians" in the Diinaseitung of December 
4, (17,) 1906. 



56 MILITARISM 

as the Russian toughs, the black bands. In the 
bourgeois capitalist state the conscript army, in its 
function as a weapon against the proletariat, is a 
crude and, at the same time, terrible and fantastic 
contradiction in itself; under the Czar's despotic 
regime the conscript army is a weapon which must 
turn itself more and more with crushing power 
against the despotism of Czarism itself, from 
which at the same time the conclusion must be 
drawn that the experience derived from the anti- 
militarist developments in Russian can he utilized 
only with great care in regard to iHe bourgeois cap- 
italist states. In the bourgeois capitalist states, 
the attempts of the ruling classes to buy the people 
to fight against itself, and that even largely with 
money taken from the people for the purpose men- 
tioned, are condemned to ultimate failure. In re- 
gard to Russia, we are witnessing already how des- 
perate and wretched attempts of Czarism to bribe 
the revolution, as it were, are resulting in an early 
and pitiable fiasco amidst the miseries of the finan- 
cial situation, in spite of all the endeavors of the 
unscrupulous international stock-exchange finan- 



CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM 57 

ciers to retrieve the situation. It is certain that 
the loan question is an important one, at least in re- 
gard to the rate at which the revolution develops ; 
but as little as revolutions can be artificially made, 
as little and still less can they be bought,^^ even if 
the means of the high finance of the world should 
be employed. 

33 Not even, as now proposed, in the modern way of job- 
bing away and discounting concessions and natural resources. 
to American trusts, that last invention and cry of despair of 
the financial policy of Czarism. 



III. 

MEANS AND EFFECTS OF MILITARISM. 
THE IMMEDIATE GOAL. 

We now proceed to a special investigation of the 
means and effects of militarism, taking as a para- 
digm the Prusso-German bureaucratic, feudal and 
capitalist militarism, that worst form of capitalist 
miltarism, that state above the state. 

Though it is true that modern militarism is but 
an institution of our capitalist society, it is none 
the less true that it is an institution which has 
almost succeeded in becoming an independent in- 
stitution, an end in itself. 

In order to fulfil its purpose militarism must 
turn the army into a handy, docile, effective tool. 
It must raise its equipment to the highest possible 
perfection and, on the other hand, as the army is 
not composed of machines, but of men, being a 
kind of living machinery, it must inspire the army 

with the proper "spirit." 

58 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 59 

The first part of the problem is ultimately a 
question of finance, which will be dealt with later. 
We shall deal with the second part first. 

The question presents three aspects. Militar- 
ism seeks to create and promote the military spirit 
above all and in the first line in the active army 
itself; secondly in those portions of the popula- 
tion furnishing the reserves of the army in case of 
mobilization; finally in all the other parts of the 
population that are of importance for militaristic 
and anti-militaristic purposes. 

MILITARY PEDAGOGY. TRAINING SOLDIERS. 

That proper "military spirit," also called 
"patriotic spirit" and, in Prussia-Germany, "loy- 
alty to the king," signifies in short a constant 
readiness to pitch into the exterior or the interior 
enemy whenever commanded to do so. Taken by 
itself the most suitable condition for its produc- 
tion is a state of complete stupidity, or at least as 
low an intelligence as possible which enables one 
to drive the mass as a herd of cattle in whatever 
direction is demanded by the interest of the "ex- 



6o MILITARISM 

isting order." The avowal of the Prussian war 
minister, von Einem, who said that he liked a sol- 
dier loyal to his king, even he were a bad shot, 
better than a less loyal one however good a shot 
he might be, certainly came from the depth of the 
soul of this representative of German militarism. 
But here militarism finds itself in a bad quandary. 
The handling of arms, strategy and tactics de- 
mand of the modern soldier not a small measure 
of intelligence and cause the more intelligent sol- 
dier also to be the more efficient, cateris paribus. 
For that reason alone militarism would no longer 
be able to do anything with a merely stupid mass 
of men. Moreover, capitalism could not use such 
a stupid mass, as the great mass of the people, es- 
pecially the great mass of the proletariat, have 
to perform economic functions requiring intelli- 
gence. To be able to exploit, to secure the 
highest possible rate of profit — the task of its life 
which it cannot escape — capitalism is compelled 
by a tragical fate to foster systematically and to 
a large extent among its slaves the same intelli- 
gence which, as it knows quite well, must bring 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 61 

death and annihilation to capitalism. All the at- 
tempts to guide the ship of capitalism by skilful 
tacking, by a cunning cooperation of church and 
school, safely between the Scylla of too low an 
intelligence which would be too great an impedi- 
ment to exploitation and would make the prole- 
tarian even unfit as a beast of burden, and the 
Charybdis of an education which revolutionizes 
the minds of the exploited, enabling them to grasp 
their class-interests in their entirety and neces- 
sarily bringing destruction to capitalism, must end 
in dreary and hopeless failure. It is only the East 
Elbian ^ farmhands (who still may be, as was 
once said, the most stupid workers indeed and the 
best workers — for the junkers, be it noted) who 
largely furnish militarism with human material 
that can be commanded in herds without trouble, 
purely like slaves, but can be used to advantage 
in the army only with care and within certain 
limits, on account of an intelligence which is even 
too low for militarism. 



I'A word coined in Germany to describe those parts of 
Prussia situated east of the river Elbe, the home of the Prus- 
sian junkers. [Translator.] 



62 MILITARISM 

Our best soldiers are Social Democrats, is a much 
quoted expression. It shows the difficulty of the 
task of imbuing the conscript army with the 
proper military spirit. As the mere unquestion- 
ing and slavish ^ obedience does no longer suffice 
and is also no longer possible, militarism must 
seek to dominate the will of its human material 
by a roundabout way in order to create its shoot- 
ing automata. It must bend the will by work- 
ing upon the men's mind and soul or by force, it 
must decoy its pupils or coerce them. The proper 
"spirit" needed by militarism for its purpose 
against the foreign enemy consists of a crazy jingo- 
ism, narrow-mindedness and arrogance; the spirit 
it needs for its purposces against the enemy at 
home is that of a lack of understanding or even 
hatred of every kind of progress, every enterprise 
and movement even distantly endangering the 
rule of the actually dominating class. It is in 
that direction that militarism, when moulding the 
character of its charges by its milder means, must 

^"Kadavergehorsam" (the obedience of the corpse) is the 
expressive word used in the German original. [Translator.] 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 63 

turn the mind and sentiments of those soldiers 
whose class-interest removes them entirely from 
the sphere of jingoism and makes them see in 
every step in advance, including the overthrow 
of the existing order of society itself, the only 
reasonable goal to be aimed at. We do not deny 
that with the proletarian of military age class- 
consciousness is usually not yet firmly rooted, 
though he generally greatly surpasses the bour- 
geois youth of the same age in independence of 
character and political understanding. 

It is an extremely bold and cunning system, 
this system of moulding a soldier's intellect and 
feeling, which attempts to supplant the class- 
division according to social status by a class-divi- 
sion according to ages, to create a special class of 
proletarians of the ages from 20 to 22, whose 
thinking and feeling are directly opposed to the 
thinking and feeling of the proletarians of a differ- 
ent age. 

In the first place the proletarian in uniform 
must be separated locally, sharply and without 
any consideration, from members of his class and 



64 MILITARISM 

his own family. That purpose is attained by 
removing him from his home district, which has 
been accomplished systematically especially in 
Germany, and above all by shutting him up in 
barracks.^ One might almost describe the sys- 
tem as a copy of the Jesuitical method of ed- 
ucation, a counter-part of the monastic institu- 
tions. 

In the next place that segregation must be kept 
up as long a time as possible, a tendency which, as 
the military necessity of the long period of train- 
ing has long since disappeared, is thwarted by un- 
toward financial consequences. It was substan- 
tially that circumstance to which we owe the in- 
troduction of the two-years' military service in 
1892. 

Finally, the time thus gained must be utilized 
as skilfully as possible to capture the souls of the 



3 A dangerous method from a sanitary point of view, which 
in France, for instance, is leading to a very extensive infec- 
tion of the people with tuberculosis and syphilis. The French 
army shows from five to seven times more cases of tubercu- 
losis than the German army. In a few decades, exclaims a 
warning voice in France, France will be decimated if the bar- 
racks system be not abolished. 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 65 

young men. Various means are employed for 
that purpose. 

All human weaknesses and senses must be ap- 
pealed to to serve the system of military educa- 
tion, exactly as is done in the church. Ambition 
and vanity are stimulated, the soldier's coat is 
represented as the most distinguished of all coats, 
the soldier's honor is lauded as being of special 
excellence, and the soldier's status is trumpeted 
forth as the most important and distinguished and 
is indeed endowed with many privileges.* The 
love of finery is appealed to by turning the uni- 
form, contrary to its purely military purpose, into 
a gay masquerade dress, to comply with the coarse 
tastes of those lower classes who are to be fasci- 
nated. All kinds of little glittering marks of dis- 

* We need only point to the intentioned helplessness of the 
police in face of disorderly soldiers, and especially officers. 
The reader is further referred to the privilege of the sol- 
diery to march in processions of unending lengths through the 
cities and thus to disturb traffic greatly without rhyme or 
reson — to satisfy, of course, the demands of military aesthetics. 
The acme of the ridiculous conceit of this carefully reared 
craziness was seen some years ago in Berlin when the fire- 
brigade, hastening to a fire, was simply stopped by a military 
column that crossed its route and that felt no inclination to 
have its beautiful and majestic order deranged. It is true, 
this was condemned later on. 



66 MILITARISM 

tinction, marks of honor, cords for proficiency in 
shooting, etc., serve to satisfy the same low in- 
stinct, the love for finery and swagger. Many a 
soldier has had his woes soothed by the regimental 
band to which, next to the glittering gew-gaw of 
the uniforms and the pompous military ostenta- 
tion, is due the greatest part of that unreserved 
popularity which our "magnificent war army" can 
amply boast of among children, fools, servant- 
girls and the riff-raff. Whoever has but once seen 
the notorious public attending the parades and 
the crowds following the mounting of the Berlin 
palace guard must be clear on that point. It is 
sufficiently known that the popularity of the mili- 
tary uniform thus actually created among certain 
portions of the civilian population, is a factor of 
considerable importance to allure the uneducated 
elements of the army. 

The lower the mentality of the soldiers, the 
lower their social condition, the better is the effect 
of all these means; for such elements are not 
only more easily deceived by tinsel and finery on 
account of their weak faculty of discernment, but 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 67 

to them the difference between the level of their 
former civilian existence and their military posi- 
tion also appears to be particularly great and 
striking. (One need only think of an American 
negro or an East Prussian agricultural slave sud- 
denly invested with the "most distinguished" 
coat.) There is thus a tragical conflict going on, 
in as much as those means have less effect with the 
intelligent industrial proletarian for whom they 
are intended in the first line, than with those ele- 
ments that need hardly be influenced in that di- 
rection, for the present at least, since they furnish 
without them a sufficiently docile military raw 
material. However those means may in their 
case, too, contribute to the preservation of the 
"spirit" approved of by militarism. The same 
purpose is served by regimental festivals, the cele- 
bration of the Emperor's birthday, and other con- 
trivances. 

When everything has been done to get the sol- 
dier into the mood of drunkenness, as it were, to 
narcotize his soul, to inflame his feelings and im- 
agination, his reason must be worked upon sys- 



68 MILITARISM 

tematically. The daily military school lesson be- 
gins in which it is sought to drum into the soldier 
a childish, distorted view of the world, properly 
trimmed up for the purposes of militarism. This 
instruction, too, which is mostly given by entirely 
incapable and uneducated people, has no effect 
whatever on the more intelligent industrial prole- 
tarians, who are quite often much more intelli- 
gent than their instructors. It is an experiment 
on an unsuitable material, an arrow rebounding 
on him that shot it. That has only lately been 
proved, in a controversy with General Liebert 
about the anti-socialist instruction of soldiers, by 
The Post and Max Lorenz, with the acumen gen- 
erated by the capitalist competition for profits. 

To produce the necessary pliability and tract- 
ableness of will pipe-clay service, the discipline of 
the barracks, the canonization of the officer's ^ and 

s These are indeed strange saints ! The reader may remem- 
ber the Bilse case of the month of November, 1903, the many 
"small garrisons" after the Forbach model, the gambling and 
champagne decrees, the officers' dueling practices (that fine 
fieur of the officers' honor), the stabbings of Brusewitz and 
the shooting propensities of Hiissener, the Ruhstrat affair 
and that of the "harmless," the novels of Bilse and Beyer- 
lein depicting the life of the officers with photographic truth, 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 69 

non-commissioned officer's^ coat, which in many 
respects appears to be truly sacrosanct and legibus 
solutus^ have to do service, in short, discipline and 
control which bind the soldier as in fetters of 
steel in regard to all he does and thinks, on duty 
and off duty. Each and every one is ruthlessly 
bent, pulled and stretched in all directions in such 
a manner that the strongest back runs danger of 
being broken in bits and either bends or breaks/ 

■^'First-class People" by Schlicht (Count Baudissin), the scan- 
dals about Jesko von Puttkamer and, last but not least, that 
about Prince Arenberg which also belongs to this category. 
The French "Little Garrison," Verdun, raised much dust in 
the fall of 1906. In the eyes of the worshippers of the uni- 
form all these things are of course mostly considered as mere 
"amiable, piquant weaknesses" of the worshipped saint, who 
is, however, very particular about people confessing the Chris- 
tian creed. Naturally, we find here, too, that international 
solidarity of the noblest and best. An interesting case is the 
ragging practice of the officers of the English grenadier guard 
regiments, which were exposed at the beginning of 1903. 

^ The German non-commissioned officer has been called the 
^'representative of God on earth." 

7 The most shocking proof is furnished by the statistics of 
suicides among soldiers. Those suicides of soldiers are an- 
other international phenomenon. According to oMcial "sta- 
tistics" one soldier among 3,700 committed suicide in Ger- 
many in 1901 ; in Austria, one among 920. In the loth 
Austrian army corps 80 soldiers and 12 officers committed 
suicide in 1901, 127 others became insane and left as invalids 
in consequence of self-mutilation and maltreatment. In the 
same period 400 men deserted and 725 were condemned to 
hard labor or close arrest. In Austria, of course, the con- 



70 MILITARISM 

The zealous fostering of the "church" spirit, 
which was explicitly demanded as a special aim 
of military education in a resolution submitted to 
the budget commission of the Reichstag in the 
month of February, 1892, and then voted down 
(without prejudice, by the way), is another 
method of the kind to complete the work of mili- 
tary oppression and enslavement. 

Military instruction and ecclesiastical influence 
are at one and the same time methods of kind 
persuasion and compulsion, but the latter mostly 
only in a carefully veiled form of application. 

The most attractive bait that is employed to 
make up and fill the important standing forma- 
tions of the army is the system of reengagement 
of men whose time has expired, who are given a 
chance to earn premiums as non-commissioned offi- 
cers ^ and are promised employment in the civil 

flict of nationalities greatly contributes to aggravate the situa- 
tion. 

^This premium system, with a maximum of 1000 marks, 
was introduced for the whole of Germany in 1891, after hav- 
ing been in existence before that time in Saxony and Wiirt- 
temberg and after having had a forerunner in the empire in 
the "non-recurrent extra-pay." It is also met with elsewhere; 
in France, however, where the amounts are much higher (up 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 71 

service after they leave the army.^ It is a most 

to 4,000 francs), it has been employed with little success. The 
schools for non-commissioned officers are also a case in point. 

9 The speech made by Chancellor Caprivi (Bismarck's suc- 
cessor), in the Reichstag, on February 27, 1891, is the classical 
confession of a noble capitalist-militarist soul of its troubles 
and anxieties, its hopes and aims and the methods adopted 
in the pursuit of those aims. It throws wide open a window 
through which we can have a good look at the most secret 
parts of that soul. The speech begins with the statement 
that the government refrained from re-introducing the ex- 
pired anti-socialist law [by which Bismarck had sought to 
fight down socialism during the preceding dozen years or so — 
Translator] only on the understanding that all possible 
measures be resorted to in order to cut the ground from under 
the feet of the Social Democracy and engage in a struggle 
with it; one of those measures (clearly a substitute for the 
anti-socialist law) was to consist of the premiums for non- 
commissioned oMcers in conjunction zvith the "Zivilversor- 
gungsschein" (a warrant entitling the holder to a place in 
a civil office). Caprivi continued: "The demands made on 
non-commissioned officers increase on account of the grow- 
ing education of the nation. A superior can fill his posi- 
tion only if he feels superior to the men entrusted to his 
charge. . . ." 

"The maintenance of discipline has in itself become more 
difficult, and it becomes harder still when we have to take up 
the struggle with the Social Democracy; I mean by this not 
the struggle by means of shooting and bayoneting. My 
memory goes back to the year 1848. Conditions were far 
better at that time, for the ideas had then not arisen through 
long years of propaganda; they cropped up suddenly and the 
old non-commissioned officers had a much easier task in deal- 
ing with the men than they have now in dealing with the 
Social Democracy. (Quite right! on the benches of the par- 
ties of the Right.) And, touching upon the most extreme 
case, we want far better non-commissioned officers in street 
fighting against the Social Democracy than in fighting against 
the enemy. When facing the enemy the troops can be filled 



72 MILITARISM 

cunningly devised and dangerous institution which 
also infects our whole public life with the mili- 
taristic virus, as will be shown further on. 

The whip of militarism, the method by which 
it forces men to obey, reveals itself above all in 
the disciplinary system, ^^ in the military penal 



with enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice by means of 
patriotism and other lofty sentiments. Street fighting and 
all that is connected with it is not calculated to raise the self- 
reliance of the troops, who always feel that they are facing 
their countrymen." . . , "The non-commissioned officers can 
retain their ascendency only if we seek to raise their status. 
The allied governments [this is the official title of the Ger- 
man federal government — Translator] desire to raise the 
level of the class of the non-commissioned officers." He went 
on to say that it was necessary to create a "class of people" 
who were "bound to the state with every fibre of their exist- 
ence." 

This is likewise a fine description of the psychology of the 
elite troops. 

10 Arrest combined with the deprivation of food, bed and 
light; extra-drill, etc.; the barbaric "tying up" in war-time. 
The Austrian practice of "binding hand and foot" and "tying 
up," the Belgian cachots, the international naval cat-o'-nine- 
tails and similar devices are well known. Less well remem- 
bered are perhaps the atrocious instruments of torture em- 
ployed in the French disciplinary sections, even against "po- 
litical" refractory elements — the poucettes, the menottes and 
the crapaudine (see the pamphlet, "Les hagnes milit aires," 
published in 1902 by the Federation socialiste autonome de 
Cher, a speech by Breton in the French Chamber, with illus- 
trations; Georges Darien, "Biribiri," (the collective name of 
all military disciplinary institutions in North Africa), Duhois- 
Desaulle, "Sous la casagne," both published in Paris by 
Stock. Material about the compagnies de discipline, peni- 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 73 

law with its ferocious threats for the slightest re- 
sistance against the so-called military spirit, in 
the military judiciary with its semi-mediseval pro- 
cedure, with its habit of meting out the most in- 
human and barbaric punishments for the slightest 
insubordination and its mild treatment of the 
transgressions committed by superiors against their 
subordinates, with its habit of juggling away, al- 
most on principle, the soldier's right of self-de- 
fence against his superiors. Nothing can arouse 
more bitter feeling against militarism and noth- 
ing can at the same time be more instructive than 
a simple perusal of the articles of war and the 
records of the military penal cases. 

This chapter also includes the maltreatment of 
soldiers, which will be specially dealt with on a 



ie'firciers and the travaux forces (penal companies, peniten- 
tiaries and hard labor) in the French Foreign Legion and the 
victims of these institutions can be found in Daumig's article 
in the Neue Zeit, vol. 99-100, p. 365, and especially p. 369. At 
this writing energetic attempts are being made to suppress 
the "biribiri," (Debates of the French Chamber, December 8 
and 10, 1906). 

The disciplinary beatings (ragging) to which the officers 
of English grenadier guard regiments are wont to regale each 
other with a laudable democratic zeal deserve to be mentioned 
as a curiosity. 



74 MILITARISM 

later occasion. It forms, it is true, not a legal, 
but in practice perhaps the most effective, of all 
violent disciplinary methods of militarism. 

Thus they attempt to tame men as they tame 
animals. Thus the recruits are drugged, confused, 
flattered, bribed, oppressed, imprisoned, polished 
and beaten; thus one grain is added to the other 
and mixed and kneaded to furnish the mortar for 
the immense edifice of the army; thus one stone is 
laid upon the other in a well calculated fashion 
to form a bulwark against the forces of subver- 
sion.^^ 



11 The military results of these educational methods are 
dealt with elsewhere. We must also point out their moral 
results, which induce the bourgeois, the anarchist and semi- 
anarchist opponents of militarism to let themselves be car- 
ried away by an indignation breathing an uncommon passion 
and delivered with a verbose pathos. "The army is the school 
of crime" (Anatole France) ; "drunkenness, sexual immor- 
ality and hypocrisy, that is what life in the barracks teaches" 
(Prof. Richet). According to the "Manuel du soldat" the 
time of military service is an "apprenticeship in brutality and 
vulgarity"; "a school of debauchery"; it leads to "moral cow- 
ardice, submission and slavish fearfulness." Indeed, one can 
scarcely imagine certain military festivals without the patri- 
otic drunkenness, which is of course "upholding the state." 
Consult the Leipziger Volkszeitung, of December I, 1906, 
about "the drinking and rioting festivals" of the veterans' as- 
sociations (words used by Pastor Cesar). The sanitary re- 
sults are likewise anything but gratifying. Concerning the 
French army, see p. 64, note 3 ; the sanitary state of the \ 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 75 

That all those methods of alluring, disciplining 
and coercing the soldier partake of the nature of 
a weapon in the class-struggle is made evident by 
the institution of the one-year volunteer. [Young 
men with high-school education, which in Ger- 
many can hardly be attained by youths belonging 
to the working class, have the privilege of serving 
but one year instead of two, paying for their food, 
lodgings, uniform, etc.] The bourgeois off- 
spring, destined to become an officer of the re- 
serves, is generally above the suspicion of harbor- 
ing anti-capitalist, anti-militarist or subversive 
ideas of any description. Consequently he is not 
sent out of his home district, he need not live in 
the barracks, nor is he obliged to attend the mili- 
tary school or the church, and he is even spared 
a. large part of the pipe-clay drill. Of course, if 
he falls into the clutches of discipline and the mili- 
tary penal law, it is exceptional and usually with 



standing armies of England and America, those democratic 
countries, is downright terrible; the death rate is far higher 
in those countries than in Germany. Cf. Surgeon-General R. 
M. O'Reilly's report of 1906 with regard to dysentery and alco- 
holism. 



76 MILITARISM 

harmless results, and the habitual oppressors of 
the soldiers, though they frequently nourish a 
hatred against all "educated people," only rarely 
venture to lay hands on him. The education of 
officers furnishes a second striking proof for this 
thesis. 

Of exceptional importance for the discipline of 
an army is the cooperation of masses of men which 
does away with the initiative of the individual to 
a large extent. In the army each individual is 
chained to all the rest like a galley slave, and is 
almost incapable of acting with freedom. The 
combined force of the hundreds of thousands form- 
ing the army prevents him with an overwhelming 
power from making the slightest movement of his 
own volition. All the parts of this tremendous 
organism, or rather of this tremendous machinery 
are not only subject to the suggestive influence of 
the word of command, but also to a separate hyp- 
notism, a mass suggestion whose influence, how- 
ever, would be impotent on an army composed of 
enlightened and resolute opponents of militarism. 

The two tasks of militarism, as will be seen, do 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 77 

not at all harmonize always in the department of 
military education, but are often at cross-purposes. 
That is not only true of training, but also in re- 
gard to equipment. War training demands ever 
more imperatively a continuously growing meas- 
ure of initiative on the part of the soldier. As a 
"watch-dog of capital" the soldier does not re- 
quire any initiative, he is not even allowed to 
possess it, if his qualification as a suicide is not to 
be destroyed. In short, war against the foreign 
foe requires men; war against the foe at home, 
slaves, machines. And as regards equipment and 
clothes the gaudy uniforms, the glittering buttons 
and helmets, the flags, the parades, the cavalry 
charges and all the rest of the nonsense can not be 
dispensed with for producing the spirit necessary 
for the battle against the interior enemy, though 
in a war against the exterior enemy all these things 
would positively bring about a calamity; they 
are simply impossible. ^^ That tragical conflict, 
the numerous aspects of which can not be dealt 

12 We naturally include in the battle against the interior 
enemy the fight carried on against the spirit of international 
solidarity which is opposed to "militarism for abroad." 



78 MILITARISM 

with exhaustively in this book, has not been com- 
prehended by the well-intentioned critics of our 
militarism, who in their simplicity only use the 
standard applicable to a system of training for 
war. 

That antagonism of interests within militarism 
itself, that self-contradiction from which it suffers, 
has the tendency of becoming more and more 
acute. Which of the two opposing sets of inter- 
est gets the upper hand depends at a given time 
on the relation existing between the tension in 
home and foreign politics. Here we see clearly 
a potential self-destruction of militarism. 

When the war against the interior enemy, in 
case of an armed revolution, puts such great de- 
mands on military art that dressed-up slaves and 
machines no longer suffice to fight him down the 
last hour of the violent domination of the minor- 
ity, of capitalistic oligarchy will also have struck. 

It is of sufficient importance for us to note that 
the described military spirit as such confuses and 
leads astray the proletarian class-consciousness and 
that militarism, by infecting our whole public life, 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 79 

serves capitalism with that spirit in all other di- 
rections, apart from the purely military, for in- 
stance, by creating and promoting proletarian 
docility in face of economic, social and political 
exploitation and by thwarting as much as possible 
the struggle for the liberation of the working 
class. We shall have to deal with this later 
on. 

SEMI-OFFICIAL AND SEMI-MILITARY ORGANIZA- 
TION OF THE CIVIL POPULATION. 

Militarism also seeks to influence those persons 
who do not yet or who no longer belong to the 
active army^ to as large an extent, for as long a 
period and as strongly as possible. It attempts 
to accomplish its purpose in the first place by 
arrogating to itself the greatest possible authority 
over those persons, for instance, by a system of 
control, by largely extending the military juris- 
diction, the procedure by the military courts of 
honor (which is even employed against retired 
officers) and even the competence of the military 
command. This method is characterized with 



8o MILITARISM 

particular clearness in the muster of the reserve- 
soldiers, when the men called up are placed under 
military jurisdiction, which is claimed by the mili- 
tary authorities to last for the whole day^ though 
it is manifestly against the law; there is not the 
slightest ground for establishing such a right, it is 
a simple usurpation. In this connection mention 
must further be made of the cadet corps and vet- 
erans' associations with their semi-official or semi- 
military organization, their aping of the military 
get-up, fiddle-faddle and junketings. A chief 
part in that department of militaristic activity is 
played by the mischievous reserve-officer system, 
which carries the military caste spirit into the 
civilian society and perpetuates that spirit and, 
which is still more important, places the higher 
officials of the state and communal civil adminis- 
tration, as well as those of the law and educational 
system, almost without an exception under mili- 
tary discipline, subjecting them to the militaristic 
spirit, to the whole militaristic view of life, and 
thus stifling in them in advance any inconvenient 
impulse of opposition that might possibly arise 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 81 

even in their official minds. ^^ By these means the 
tractableness of the civil executive is secured, an 
object reached in regard to the subalterns and 
lower officials by means of the systems giving 
preference to the claims of former military per- 
sons to public posts. Provision is thus made that 
class justice and the class educational system shall 
bear their proper military stamp and that self- 
government ^* shall be kept back with a firm hand. 
Also worthy of mention is the order that officers, 
whether in active service or not, must not do any 
literary work, which, alongside the highly instruc- 
tive Gadke ^^ case, is the most conclusive symptom 

13 It should be explained that in Germany it is the ambi- 
tion of most well-to-do young men to become a lieutenant of 
the reserve after having served in the army for one year as 
a volunteer. The title of lieutenant of the reserve is the key 
to official society. [Translator.] 

1* The bold exploit of the "captain of Koepenick," that in- 
genious cobbler and jail-bird, has exactly in this connection 
been pointed to as the writing on the wall, and that also by 
Liberals. 

15 Colonel Gadke, when no longer in active service, had 
criticized the German war minister in the columns of the Ber- 
liner Tageblatt, a radical newspaper whose military expert 
he was at the time. The criticism concerned a speech in the 
Reichstag in which the minister had defended the duel. 
Gadke had to appear before a court and lost his military title. 
He then took the case before the imperial (federal) court and 
won. [Translator.] 



82 MILITARISM 

of the reckless desire of militarism for intellectual 
subjection and the centralized supervision of 
everything within its reach, and also indicates its 
tendency continually to extend its sphere of in- 
fluence, legally or illegally, its desire for unlim- 
ited growth, its unlimited appetite for power. 

OTHER WAYS OF INFLUENCING THE CIVILIAN POP- 
ULATION IN A MILITARY DIRECTION. 

An even more important result of the militaris- 
tic hunger for expansion than the mischievous re- 
serve-officer system is the nuisance of the military 
claimant system in public employment, which, be- 
sides the purely military purpose mentioned, serves 
in no less a degree the purpose of sending into all 
the branches of the state and municipal adminis- 
tration a band of always faithful and enthusiastic 
representatives and propagandists of the militaris- 
tic spirit. By this method it is intended at the 
same time to insure the trustworthiness and loy- 
alty of the bureaucracy serving capitalism, and to 
spread among the mass of the people who are par- 
ticularly in need of education the "right," "state- 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 83 

conserving" way of thinking. That ^'educa- 
tional" purpose of the system was avowed with 
touching unanimity and frankness by ChancelloF 
Caprivi and the representatives of the ruling 
classes in the Reichstag debates on the premiums 
for non-commissioned officers, in February, 1891. 
Thus, after the corporal had to leave the teacher's 
desk, the conservative ideal of our popular educa- 
tional system has fortunately arrived again by a 
devious route at the non-commissioned officer. ^^ 

True, the educational results are very meagre 
ones. The poor fellows with their military claims 
for subordinate positions are too badly paid. 
After all, even a German non-commissioned offi- 
cer is not to be had indefinitely for a pittance and 
the honor of serving the King of Prussia.*''' It is 
the eternal problem of buying up the revolution ! 

In this connection it should be mentioned that 
the same methods which are employed to arouse 
and to keep alive the military enthusiasm of the 

16 Liebknecht here refers to the former custom of making 
old superannuated soldiers school-teachers. [Translator,] 

^'^ There exists in Germany a kind of union of these offi- 
cials — The Association of German Military Claimants of Civil 
Employment. 



84 MILITARISM 

soldiers themselves, as, for instance, all the display 
and pomp, likewise influence the non-military 
populations i. e., those elements from whose ranks 
the army is recruited, who form its background, 
who have to bear its expense and who are in "dan- 
ger" of falling a prey to the interior foe. The 
British secretary for war, Mr. Haldane, proved 
himself an apt pupil on his Prussian visit in the 
fall of 1906, when he learned that. He expressed 
the thought that a valuable secondary effect of 
militarism was that it educated the people in sober- 
mindedness and faithfulness to duty by bringing 
them into closer contact with the army and war 
preparations. 

Militarism possesses still another means, but one 
of quite a different kind, to spread its spirit, viz., 
in its character as a consumer and producer and in 
its influence over great industrial undertakings of 
the state which are of strategical importance. 

Quite a host of manufacturers, tradesmen and 
merchants, with their employees, live by the army, 
people who take part in the production and the 
transportation of all commodities necessary for 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 85 

its equipment, lodging and maintenance, and of all 
articles of consumption needed by the soldiers. 
These beneficiaries of the army often positively 
determine the character of the whole public life 
of a place, especially in small garrison towns, and 
the most powerful among them rule like princes 
over large communities and play the first fiddle in 
their state and in the empire. They owe their 
influence to militarism which allows itself to be 
fleeced and bamboozled by them with astonishing 
patience, and return thanks (one good turn de- 
serves another) by becoming its most fervent 
propagandists, for which part they are, of course, 
already cut out by their capitalist interests. Who 
does not know the names of Krupp, Stumm, Ehr- 
hardt, Lowe, Wormann, Tippelskirch, Nobel, 
Powder Trust, etc.? Who has not heard of 
Krupp's usurious rates for armor plate, of the Tip- 
pelskirch profits with the bribes appertaining to 
them, of the exorbitant freight and demurrage 
charges of Wormann, the net 100 and 150 percent, 
profit of the Powder Trust which lightened the 
purse of the German Empire by many a million*? 



86 MILITARISM 

In Austria the frauds of the army contractors have 
been especially sensational. And every campaign 
means for that parasitic crowd (not only in Rus- 
sia) a golden fraudulent harvest. These mighty 
gentlemen, as was said before, repay militarism 
like true Christians for allowing them to rob it, 
or rather the people. They pour out the holy 
ghost of militarism over "their" workers and all 
that are dependent on them, and conduct a relent- 
less war against the forces of revolution. Of 
course, neither the workmen nor the great majority 
of the small army contractors have a real material 
interest in the army. The countries that have no 
standing army are certainly not inferior in general 
well-being and prosperity of commerce and indus- 
try to the countries possessing a standing army, and 
the persons employed in the branches of military 
production certainly would not be worse off eco- 
nomically if there were no army. But as a rule 
they do not see beyond their nose and submit only 
too readily to the strong militaristic influence, so 
that an oppositional propaganda meets with great 
difficulties. 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 87 

As an employer in great industrial undertakings 
(such as military store-houses, canning factories, 
clothing factories, remount-depots, arms and muni- 
tion factories, navy yards, etc.) militarism does 
not only willingly and exclusively hand over its 
employees (on October 31, 1904, there were alto- 
gether 54,723 persons employed in industrial es- 
tablishments owned by the administration of the 
German army and navy) to all reactionary 
patriotic demagogues, as, for example, the imperial 
anti-socialist union, it also attempts to permeate 
"them systematically and ruthlessly with the 
patriotic militaristic spirit, by bestowing titles and 
decorations on them, arranging for them festivals 
in the manner of the veterans' associations, prom- 
ising them impossible pensions, by outlawing the 
trade union and introducing into its shops a verit- 
able barracks discipline. Among the government 
work-shops the shops of the military administra- 
tion present the hardest problem in the campaign 
for the enlightenment of the proletariat. There is 
naturally a limit to the influence exercised by the 
forces hostile to the labor movement, and it can 



88 MILITARISM 

hardly be that the administration of the army still 
cherishes any illusions in view of the Social Demo- 
cratic successes, especially among the workers at 
the imperial navy yards. The very childish threat 
to close down the military shops in case the Social 
Democratic vote among the workers should in- 
crease, a threat employed at Spandau during the 
election of 1903, can impede the spreading of 
class-consciousness as little as any other threat, so 
long as militarism by giving its workers niggardly 
proletarian pay makes them over to the Social 
Democracy. One need but recall the frequent 
wage movements in the royal factories, the numer- 
ous conflicts of the men employed there with the 
military administration, conflicts which often as- 
sume an animated form, in order to overcome one's 
pessimism in regard to these workers. 

The railroads, the postal and telegraphic ser- 
vices are institutions of decisive strategical im- 
portance, not only for the war against the exterior, 
but also for the war against the interior enemy. 
Those indispensable strategical factors can be 
made useless for militarism by a strike, which 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 89 

would lead to a complete paralysis of the military 
organism. It is therefore quite natural that mili- 
tarism should earnestly strive to imbue with its 
spirit the minds of the officials and workmen be- 
longing to the staffs of those industries of com- 
munication and the factories connected with them 
(railroad-shops, car factories, etc.). The unscru- 
pulous manner in which this purpose is being pur- 
sued is not only demonstrated by the system of 
military claimants for civil employment, pre- 
viously described, but also by the fact that in sev- 
eral states those employees have been placed under 
the military law; it is further shown by their po- 
litical condition, in the militarist countries where 
they have been deprived of the right of combina- 
tion either by administrative procedure (as in Ger- 
many and France) or by special laws (as in Italy, 
Holland, and also Russia). Naturally, we do not 
deny that apart from those military interests the 
capitalist state guards its general interests in pre- 
venting its employees in those industries of com- 
munication from being captured by its enemies. 
Those efforts, too, will necessarily be fruitless in 



90 MILITARISM 

the long run, however great the difficulties they 
prepare for the labor movement. They fail on 
account of inadequate wages, on account of the 
positively proletarian mode of existence of the em- 
ployees of the communication systems. 

MILITARISM AS MACHIAVELLISM AND AS A 
POLITICAL REGULATOR. 

Militarism thus appears in the first place in the 
army itself^ then as a system reaching beyond the 
army and embracing all of society in a net of mili- 
taristic and semi-militaristic institutions (such as 
the control system, the prohibition of literary 
activity, court of honor, the reserve-officer system, 
the provision for time-expired non-commissioned 
officers, the militarization of the whole bureau- 
cratic apparatus [due above all to the mischievous 
reserve-officer system and the military claimants 
for public positions], cadet corps, veterans' asso- 
ciations, etc.); further as a system of saturating 
the whole private and public life of our people 
with the military spirit for which purpose the 
church, the schools, and a certain venal art, as well 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 91 

as the press, a despicable literary crowd and the 
social prestige, with which our "splendid war 
army" is ever being surrounded as by a halo^ co- 
operate in a tenacious and cunning fashion. By 
the side of the Catholic Church militarism repre- 
sents the acme of Machiavellism in the world's 
history and the most Machiavellian among 
all the Machiavellian institutions of capital- 
ism. 

The exploit of the Kopenick cobbler-captain, 
previously mentioned, may be regarded as a com- 
pendium of that whole militaristic art of education 
and its results, the most sublime of which is the 
veritable canonization of the officer's coat by the 
whole bourgeois society. In an examination, last- 
ing six hours, to which this jail-bird subjected a 
sample of our army, our bureaucratic apparatus 
and the allegiance of the Prussian subject, all these 
probationers passed with such great honors that 
even their teachers were speechless with astonish- 
ment at that quintessence of their pedagogy. No 
Gessler's hat has ever found such willing submis- 
sion and self-humiliation as the cap of the immor- 



92 MILITARISM 

tal Captain of Kopenick, no holy coat of Treves 
has ever been worshipped so religiously as his uni- 
form. That classical satire whose enormous effec- 
tiveness consists in its having hunted to deadi mili- 
tarism's own pedagogic principles, ought to hunt 
to death militarism amidst the scornful laughter of 
the world if — ^yes, if that same bourgeois society, 
which in regard to militarism now finds itself for 
the moment in the position of the sorcerer's ap- 
prentice who evoked the spirits but could not get 
rid of them, did not need militarism as badly as its 
daily bread and the air it breathes. The same old 
tragical conflict. Capitalism and its powerful 
major-domo, militarism, do not love each other at 
all, but rather fear and hate each other, for which 
they have many a reason; they look upon each 
other (for the major-domo has acquired sufficient 
independence) only as a necessary evil, for which 
again they have many a reason. The lesson of 
Kopenick which bourgeois society can not turn to 
its profit will therefore only remain a convincing 
argument for anti-militarist propaganda, for the 
Social Democracy which flourishes all the more the 



MEANS AND EFFECTS 93 

more militarism pushes its principles to their ex- 
treme conclusions. 

What the Captain of Kopenick means for mili- 
tarism in the domain of practical swindling, the in- 
imitable Gustav Tuch was for it in the domain of 
honest theorizing, towards the end of the eighties. 
In his bulky volume, "The Expanded German 
Military State in its Social Significance," he 
sketched a future society of which the all illumin- 
ating, warming, directing central sun is militarism, 
its heart and soul, the only true "national and civi- 
lized socialism"; where the whole state is trans- 
formed into the image of the barracks, the bar- 
racks being grammar school, high-school and a 
factory for producing patriotic spirit, the army an 
all comprising organization of strike-breakers. 
That ecstatic hallucination about the millennium 
of militarism was indeed mere methodical mad- 
ness, but the very fact that it was a methodical 
madness, which imagined the militaristic aims and 
methods apart from all checks and carried them to 
their extreme conclusions, lends to it a symp- 
tomatic significance. 



94 MILITARISM 

At least in one sphere of prime importance mili- 
tarism, as will be shown more conclusively later 
on, is to-day already the central sun around which 
move the solar systems of class legislation, bureau- 
cracy, police rule, class- justice and the clericalism 
of all denominations. It is the ultimate, some- 
times recondite, sometimes patent regulator of all 
class politics, all tactics of the class-struggle, not 
only for the capitalist classes, but also for the pro- 
letariat, in regard to its economic organization no 
less than in regard to its political organization. 



IV. 

CONCERNING SOME CARDINAL SINS OF MILITARISM. 

MALTREATMENT OF SOLDIERS OR MILITARISM 

AS A REPENTANT, YET UNREFORMED 

SINNER. 

TWO DILEMMAS. 

The militarists are not all dull-witted. That is 
proven by the extremely clever educational system 
they have introduced. With noteworthy skill 
they rely upon mass psychology. The army of 
Frederick, composed of mercenaries and the scum 
of the population, had to be kept together for its 
mechanical tasks by pipe-clay drill and thrashings. 
That is no longer possible in an army formed on 
the basis of a civic duty and placing much greater 
demands upon the individual. This was clearly 
recognized at once by men like Scharnhorst and 
Gneisenau/ whose army reorganization began 

1 The men that reorganized the entire Prussian army sys- 
tem after the Prussian army had been shattered at Jena by 
Napoleon, in 1806. [Translator.] 

95 



96 MILITARISM 

with the proclamation of the ' 'freedom of the 
back." Yet, bad treatment, brutal insults, beat- 
ings and all kinds of cruel maltreatment belong 
also to the stock-in-trade of our present system of 
military education. 

The attitude of military circles toward the mal- 
treatment of soldiers is naturally not determined 
by considerations of ethics, civilization, humanity, 
justice, Christianity and other fine things, but 
purely by Jesuitical expedients. The hidden dan- 
ger which that maltreatment constitutes for the 
discipline and the "spirit" of the army itself^ 
has not even to-day been generally recognized.* 
The ragging of new recruits and recalcitrants by 
the older men, the brutal barracks jokes and vulgar 

2 In Manteuffel's sensible command of April i8, 1885, we 
read: "Insults attack the sense of honor and kill it, and 
the officer who insults his subordinates undermines his own 
position; for there is no dependence on the loyalty or bravery 
of him who allows himself to be insulted." . , . "In a word — 
as the subordinates are treated by their superiors, from the 
general to the lieutenant, thus they are." 

3 A shght indication is furnished by the mass of deserters 
and men liable to military service who disobeyed orders to 
join the army. No less than 15,000 German deserters perished 
in the French colonial army during the first thirty years of the 
existence of the "splendid German Empire," whilst the bloody 
battle of Vionville in the Franco-German War resulted in only 
16,000 men being killed and wounded. 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 97 

language of all kind, and the fairly frequent 
knocks and blows and hazing, are heartily ap- 
proved without scruple and are even positively con- 
sidered necessary by the majority of non-com- 
missioned officers and even officers, who, estranged 
from and hostile to the people, have been trained 
to become the most narrow-minded petty despots. 
The fight against those outrages therefore meets 
almost at the outset, with an all but insuperable 
passive resistance. Privately, but not publicly, 
one may hear daily how superiors describe the de- 
sire for decent treatment of the "fellows" as a 
symptom of a silly humanitarian sof t-headedness. 
Military service is a rude business. But even 
where they have thoroughly recognized the hidden 
dangers of disciplinary maltreatments they find 
themselves again in face of one of those disagree- 
able alternatives at which a system based on brute 
force and setting itself against the natural develop- 
ment must always arrive, and several of which we 
have already pointed out. For those maltreat- 
ments are indeed (as we shall show more conclu- 
sively) indispensable auxiliaries of the external 



98 MILITARISM 

drill which capitalist militarism, (for which the in- 
ward voluntary discipline is an unattainable goal), 
can not dispense with for want of a better method. 
We repeat that they are considered, not officially, 
it is true, but semi-officially, in spite of all the 
scruples and regrets we hear expressed, not as a 
legal, but as an indispensable means of military 
education. 

But apart from military scruples, our militarists 
suffer from a bad conscience since they have been 
caught at their game, i. e., since the relentless 
Social Democratic criticism of the army institu- 
tions began and large portions of the middle-class 
commenced to disavow that military morality. 
With a gnashing of teeth militarism had to ac- 
knowledge that it was not simply devised and 
commanded by the supreme war lord, but that it 
depends, especially in regard to its material exist- 
ence, on the popular representative body on which 
it looks with such scornful disdain — on the Reich- 
stag which includes even representatives of the 
"mob"; in short, that it depends on the "rabble" 

M 

and that under cover of their immunity the peo- 1 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 99 

pie's representatives in the Reichstag pitilessly 
exposed its nakedness again and again. In sullen 
rage it saw itself obliged to maintain the good 
mood of those plebeians, those Reichstag fellows, 
that despised and derided "public opinion." The 
problem was, not to put to too hard a test the 
devout belief in militarism possessed by the bour- 
geoisie who, as a rule, were ready to grant all pos- 
sible military demands but who, especially in times 
of financial troubles, were not rarely apt to kick 
against the pricks; moreover, things had to be 
made easier for the bourgeoisie when the latter 
were dealing with their voters, largely anti-mili- 
tarists, because of their social position, and ready 
to embrace Social Democracy when they recognize 
their class interests. Such weapons as were likely 
to be most effective had to be withheld or snatched 
from Social Democratic propagandists; so mili- 
tarism had recourse to the tactics of hushing-up 
and concealment. The procedure of the military 
courts was secret, not a ray penetrated that dark- 
ness, and if one succeeded in penetrating it things 
were denied, disputed and extenuated with might 



loo MILITARISM 

and main. But the torch of Social Democracy 
sent its light farther and farther, even to behind 
the barracks walls and through the bars of the 
military prisons and fortresses. The military de- 
bates that took place in the German Reichstag in 
the eighties and nineties of the last century consti- 
tute a tenacious and passionate fight for the recog- 
nition of the fact that the atrocities of the barracks 
are not rare and isolated phenomena but regular, 
extraordinarily frequent, organic, constitutional 
occurrences, as it were, in military life. In that 
fight effective service was rendered by the pub- 
licity of the procedure of military courts in other 
countries, proving that military maltreatment is a 
regular attribute of militarism, even of republican 
militarism in France, even of Belgian militarism, 
even in a growing degree of the Swiss militia mili- 
tarism. 

The impression created by the army orders of 
Prince George of Saxony (of June 8, 1891 ), which 
were published by the Vorwdrts at the beginning 
of 1892; and by the orders of the Bavarian war 
minister ( December 13, 1891) ; and by the Reich- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS loi 

stag debates, which lasted from February 15 to 17, 
1892, was mainly responsible for the effect which 
the Social Democratic criticism exercised. After 
the usual "due considerations" and scufflings the 
reform of our procedure in military trials was 
brought about in 1898 with a great amount of 
painful exertion. True, the reformed procedure 
still permitted the courts to a large extent to ex- 
clude the public and thus to cover the terrible 
secrets of the barracks with the cloak of Christian 
charity, but it succeeded (in spite of all the orders 
which almost suggested the most sweeping use of 
the powers of excluding the public and in spite of 
the much discussed disciplining of the judges in 
the Bilse case) in bringing down such a hail of ap- 
palling cases of maltreatment upon the heads of 
the public that all objections against the Social 
Democratic criticism were simply swept away, and 
the existence of the maltreatment of soldiers as a 
settled institution of "state-conserving" militarism 
was acknowledged almost everywhere, however re- 
luctantly. More or less honestly the authorities 
attempted to grapple with this repelling institution 



102 MILITARISM 

which proved of too great an advantage to the 
socialist propaganda, and though they did not be- 
lieve in any substantial success, they yet wanted to 
arouse the impression of dislike for the institution 
and readiness to try their best to abolish it. They 
began to hunt down with a certain amount of 
severity those guilty of maltreating soldiers, but 
militarism has after all a greater interest in main- 
taining military discipline, in training the people 
in arms to be docile fighters in the struggle against 
their own international and national interests, than 
in attacking the maltreatment of soldiers. It is 
instructive to compare the sentences passed upon 
the basest tormentors of soldiers with those pro- 
nounced almost daily upon soldiers for often quite 
petty offences against their superiors, or for of- 
fences committed in a state of excitement or in- 
toxication by soldiers against their superiors. For 
the soldier there is a blood-thirsty, Draconic pun- 
ishment for the smallest sin against the holy ghost 
of militarism; for the other offender there is, in 
spite of all, a relatively mild indulgence and un- 
derstanding. Thus the campaign of the military 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 103 

courts against the maltreatment of soldiers, con- 
ducted parallel with a campaign to throttle every 
vestige of an impulse on the part of the subordi- 
nate to exhibit a consciousness of self-dependence 
or equality, naturally fails of practical result. 
The whole story is told by the case of the Heredi- 
tary Prince of Saxe-Meiningen who had sufficient 
courage to call upon the men themselves to assist 
in the campaign against maltreatment so as to be 
able to attack the evil more energetically than ever 
before at the root. He was, however, soon forced 
to quit the army on account of this bold step. 
The incident brightly illuminates the whole use- 
lessness and hopelessness of the official campaign 
against the maltreatment of soldiers. 

The little book written by our comrade Rudolf 
Krafft, a former officer of the Bavarian army, on 
"The Victims of the Barracks" treats valuable 
material with the expert knowledge that can only 
come from inside information. Regular compila- 
tions of trials for maltreating soldiers (or sailors), 
made by the Socialist press at certain intervals, 
furnish a positively overwhelming mass of mate- 



104 MILITARISM 

rial which has unfortunately not yet been edited. 
An important and thankful task is awaiting some 
one. 

Being fundamentally opposed to militarism we 
have no delusions about it. Scharnhorst, in his 
"Order Concerning Military Punishments," 
writes : ''Experience teaches that recruits can be 
taught the drill without beating them. An officer 
to whom this may appear impossible lacks the 
necessary faculty of instruction or has no clear idea 
of training." Of course, theoretically he is right, 
but practically he is far in advance of the times. 
The maltreatment of soldiers springs from the 
very essence of capitalist militarism. A large pro- 
portion of the men is intellectually, a still larger 
proportion physically, not equal to the military re- 
quirements, especially not equal to those of the 
parade drill. The number of the young men hav- 
ing a view of life that is dangerous and hostile to 
militarism, who enter the army increases con- 
tinually. The problem is to tear that soul out of 
those * 'fellows," as it were, and replace it by a new 
patriotic soul, loyal to the king. Even the most 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 105 

skilful pedagogue finds it impossible to solve all 
those problems, let alone the kind of teachers 
available to militarism, which must in this respect, 
too, be more economical than it would like to be. 

The militaristic pedagogues have but a preca- 
rious subsistence. They depend entirely on the 
good will, on the arbitrariness of their superior, 
and must expect every minute to be thrown out of 
employment if they do not accomplish their chief 
task, that of forming the soldier in the image of 
militarism — an excellent expedient to make the 
whole apparatus of the military hierarchy ex- 
tremely pliant in the hands of the supreme com- 
mand. It goes without saying that such superiors 
drill their men with a nervous lack of consider- 
ation, that they soon come to the point where they 
use force instead of persuasion and example, and 
that such force, owing to the absolute power which 
the superior has over the life and death of his 
subordinate who has to submit to him uncondi- 
tionally, is finally applied in the shape of mal- 
treaments. All this is a natural and, humanly 
speaking, necessary concatenation in which the 



100 MILITARISM 

new Japanese militarism, too, has promptly got en- 
tangled. It is another dilemma of militarism. 

The causes of such maltreatments are not to be 
met with everywhere in a uniform degree. It is 
above all the degree of popular education which 
exercises a strongly modifying influence, and it is 
not surprising that even French colonial militarism 
forms in this respect a favorable contrast to the 
Prussian-German home militarism. 

It is exactly in this form of exercising disci- 
plinary power, and just in that necessity by which 
it arises out of the system, that we Socialists find 
an excellent weapon with which to combat mili- 
tarism fundamentally and most successfully, 
arousing against it an ever growing portion of the 
people and carrying class-consciousness into groups 
that otherwise could not yet be reached or could 
only be reached with much greater difficulty. The 
maltreatment of soldiers and military class-justice, 
one of the most provoking phenomena of capitalist 
barbarism., are not only dangerously undermining 
military discipline, they are also the most effective 
weapons in the war for the liberation of the pro- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 107 

letariat. That sin of capitalism turns against 
capitalism itself in two ways. However much the 
sinner may repent, honestly in helpless contrition, 
or in the style of the fox in the fable, those weap- 
ons can not be taken away from us; for though he 
appears in sackcloth and ashes the sinner is irre- 
claimable. 



THE COSTS OF MILITARISM OR LA 
DOULOUREUSE. 

Another Dilemma. 

Historical materialism, the doctrine of dialecti- 
cal evolution, is the doctrine of the inherent neces- 
sity of retribution. Every society divided in 
classes is condemned to commit suicide. Every 
society divided in classes is a force that ever wills 
the evil and accomplishes the good and, even if it 
did not will the evil, must do the evil; it must 
perish through the original sin of its class charac- 
ter; it must, whether it wants to or not, beget the 
CEdipus who will slay it one day, but, unlike the 
fabled Theban, with the full consciousness of com- 



io8 MILITARISM 

mitting parricide. That is at least true with re- 
gard to the capitalist order of society, with regard 
to the proletariat. Of course, the ruling class of 
capitalism, too, would very much like to enjoy its 
profits in complete comfort and security. But 
since that comfort and security neither agree with 
the national and international capitalist competi- 
tion nor with the permanent taste of those at whose 
expense it lives, capitalism erects for the protec- 
tion of wage slavery round the sanctum of profit a 
cruel fortress of despotism, bristling with arms. 
Though militarism be a vital necessity of capi- 
talism, the latter is naturally not pleased with the 
gigantic expense of militarism and considers it at 
heart as a very disagreeable burden. However, as 
it is impossible today to follow the old Cadmean 
recipe of sowing dragon's teeth in order to make 
the ground yield armed soldiers, there is nothing 
to be done but putting up with Moloch Militarism 
and feeding its insatiable appetite. The annual 
financial debates in the various parliaments dem- 
onstrate how painful a subject this quality of mili- 
tarism is to the ruling classes. Capitalism, hun- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 109 

gering for surplus value, can only be impressed by 
touching the financial spot, its constitutional weak 
spot. The expense of militarism is the only thing 
that keeps it in bounds, at least as far as it is borne 
by the bourgeoisie itself. The ethics of profiteer- 
ing, however, seeks and finds a way out that is as 
easy as it is base — the shifting of the greatest or a 
great part of the military burdens to the shoulders 
of those parts of the population that are not only 
the weakest, but for whose oppression and torture 
militarism is chiefly established. Like the ruling 
classes of other social orders the capitalist classes 
use their despotism, which is moreover based in the 
first place on the exploitation of the proletariat, 
not only in order to make the oppressed and ex- 
ploited classes forge their own chains, but also to 
make them pay for themselves for those chains to 
as large an extent as possible. Not content with 
turning the sons of the people into the execu- 
tioners of the people they press the executioners' 
pay as much as possible out of the sweat and blood 
of the people. And though here and there one is 
sensible of the bitterly provoking effect of that 



no MILITARISM 

infamous outrage, capitalism remains true to its 
faith unto death, its faith in the golden calf. 

To be sure, that shifting of the military burdens 
on to the shoulders of the poorer classes dimin- 
ishes the possibility of exploiting those classes. 
That can not be explained away, and that likewise 
contributes to the annoyance of capitalism, ever 
intent on exploitation, at Moloch. 

Militarism rests like a leaden weight on our 
whole life. It is particularly, however, a leaden 
weight for our economic life, a nightmare under 
which our economic life is groaning, a vampire 
sucking its blood, because it withdraws the best 
energies of the people from production and the 
works of civilization continually, year after year 
(In Germany there are at the moment of writing 
655,000 of the strongest and most productive men, 
mostly between the ages of 20 and 22, perma- 
nently in the army and navy), and also because of 
its insane direct costs. In Germany the military 
and naval budget, which is increasing by leaps, 
amounted in the year 1906-07 (inclusive of the 
colonial budget, but exclusive of the supplemen- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS in 

tary estimates) to more than 1,300,000,000 marks, 
say one billion and a third.^ The costs to the 
other military states are relatively not smaller,^ 
and the military expenditure of even richer coun- 
tries, such as the United States, Great Britain 
(which, in 1904-05, had an army and navy bud- 
get of 1,321,000,000), Belgium and Switzerland, 
is so extraordinary that it occupies a dominating 
position.in the budgets of those countries. Every- 
where the tendency is in the direction of a bound- 
less increase, close to the limits of the ability to 
pay. 

The following interesting compilation is found 
in the Nouveau Manuel du soldat: 

"In 1899 Europe had a military budget of 
7,184,321,093 francs. 
-I It employed in a military capacity 

4,169,321 men, 
who, if they were to work, could produce, at the 

■* Every soldier fighting in German Southwest Africa meant 
an annual expense of 9,500 marks to the German Empire in 
1906. 

^ In France, for instance, in 1905: 1,101,260,000 francs. 
Since 1870 France has spent some 40 billion francs for military- 
purposes (exclusive of the colonies). 



112 MILITARISM 

rate of three francs per day per man, the value of 

12,507,963 francs a day. 

Europe further used for military purposes 

710,342 horses 

which, at a rate of two francs per day per horse, 

could produce a value of 

1,420,684 francs a day. 
Adding that sum to the 12,507,963 francs we 
obtain a total of 

13,928,647 francs. 
Multiplied by 300 that sum shows, together 
with the budget, a lost productive value of 
11,915,913 francs." 
But in Germany alone the military budget in- 
creased from 1899 to 1906-07 from 920,000,000 
to about 1,300,000,000, more than 40 percent. 
For the whole of Europe the total amount of mili- 
tary "overhead charges," not counting the costs of 
the Russo-Japanese War, reaches at the moment 
of writing some 

13,000,000,000 marks per annum, 
say 13 percent, of the total foreign trade of the 
world. In truth a veritable policy of bankruptcy ! 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 113 

In the Russian Baltic provinces the military sup- 
pression of the revolutionary movement was for a 
long time confided to the very barons affected by 
that movement. In a similar manner America has 
realized the "unlimited possibility" of leaving the 
maintenance of capitalist order even in times of 
peace to the employers, as a concession to be ex- 
ploited, as it were. Thus, the Pinkertons have 
fairly become a legal institution for the class-strug- 
gle. At all events, that institution, like its Bel- 
gian counterpart, the civic guard, has the advan- 
tage of reducing those effects of militarism which 
are disagreeable even to the bourgeoisie (maltreat- 
ment of soldiers, expense, etc.) and of partly with- 
holding some highly effective material for agita- 
tion from the enemies of the capitalist order of 
society. However, as has been explained, that 
way out of the difficulty, which is moreover any- 
thing but pleasant for the proletariat, is as a rule 
blocked to the capitalist countries, and the intro- 
duction of the much less burdensome militia sys- 
tem is for a predeterminable time denied them be- 
cause of the function the army has to perform at 



[114 MILITARISM 

home in the class-struggle, a function which is even 
developing a pronounced feeling in favor of the 
abolition of the existing militias. 

Comparing the entire budget of the German 
'Empire for 1906-07, which amounted to 2,397,- 
324,000 marks, with that portion of it devoted to 
the army and navy, we notice that all the other 
items play only the part of small satellites to that 
mighty sum, that the entire fiscal system, the entire 
financial system group themselves round the mili- 
tary budget — "as the host of the stars are mus- 
tered round the sun," as the poet says. 

Hence militarism dangerously impedes, and 
often makes impossible even such progress in civil- 
ization as in itself would advance the interest of 
the existing social order. Education, art and 
science, public sanitation, the communication sys- 
tem: all are treated in a niggardly fashion since 
there is nothing left for works of civilization after 
gluttonous Moloch has been fed. The ministerial 
declaration that the obligations of civilization^ 



6 "Kulturaufgaben" — a very difficult word to translate cor- 
rectly. The lately much derided German word Kultur does 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 115 

did not suffer, convinced at most the East Elbian 
junkers with their low cultural demands whilst it 
could not wring more than an indulgent smile from 
the other representatives of capitalist society. 
Figures furnish the proof. It suffices to compare 
the one billion and a third of the German military 
budget of 1906 with the 171 millions that Prussia 
spent for all kinds of educational purposes, or the 
420 millions that Austria spent for military pur- 
poses in 1900 with the 5J4 millions she spent for 
elementary education. The latest Prussian school 
maintenance law, with its niggardly settlement of 
the question of teachers' salaries, and the notorious 
Studt decree against the raising of teachers' sal- 
aries in the cities speak volumes. 

Germany should be rich enough to fulfil all her 
tasks of civilization, and the more completely these 
tasks should be performed the easier it would be to 
bear their costs. But the barrier of militarism 
obstructs the road. 

Quite especially provoking is the way in which 
the expenses of militarism are defrayed in Ger- 

not merely signify material civilization, but civilized life in its 
widest aspect. [Translator.] 



ii6 MILITARISM 

many — and elsewhere, in France, for instance. It 
can almost be said that militarism is the creator 
and preserver of our oppressive, unjust system of 
indirect taxation. The entire tariff and taxation 
system of the Empire, which amounts to a squeez- 
ing-out of the masses, i. e., the great needy mass 
of our population, and to which is due, for exam- 
ple, that in 1906 the cost of living for the mass of 
the people rose by no less than from 10 to 15 per- 
cent, as against the average for the period from 
1900 to 1904, not only benefits the junkers (that 
parasitic class so tenderly cared for, very largely 
for militaristic reasons), but serves in the first line 
militaristic purposes. It is no less mainly the 
fault of militarism if our system of communica- 
tion, the development and perfection of which is 
especially to the greatest advantage of a sensible 
capitalism equipped with a shrewd understanding 
of its interests, does not by far meet the demands 
of traffic and technical progress, but is used as a 
milch-cow for a special indirect taxation of the 
people. The story of the Stengel bill on imperial 
finances ought to make even a blind man see. It 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 117 

is possible to calculate almost to a cent that this 
bill was only caused by the necessity of stopping 
that 200-million hole which militarism had once 
again succeeded in making in the imperial treas- 
ury; and the kind of taxation resorted to, which 
presses heavily on articles of popular consumption, 
beer, tobacco, etc., and even on communication, 
that breath of life of capitalism, excellently illus- 
trates what was said above. 

No doubt, in many respects militarism is a bur- 
den to capitalism itself, but that burden is as 
firmly installed on the capitalist back as the mys- 
terious strong old man was on the shoulders of Sin- 
bad the Sailor. Capitalism is in need of mili- 
tarism just as spies are needed in times of war and 
executioners and their assistants in times of peace. 
It may hate militarism, but it can not do without 
it, just as the civilized Christian may detest the 
sins against the Gospel, but can not live without 
them. Militarism is one of the original sins of 
capitalism, which may be susceptible of being 
mitigated here and there, but of which it will be 
purged only in the purgatory of Socialism. 



ii8 MILITARISM 

THE ARMY AS A WEAPON AGAINST THE 

PROLETARIAT IN THE ECONOMIC 

STRUGGLE. 

Preliminary Remarks. 

We have seen that militarism has become the 
centre round which our political, social and eco- 
nomic life tends to move more and more, that it is 
the wire-puller operating the marionettes of the 
capitalist puppet-show. We have seen what the 
purpose is that militarism pursues, how it tries to 
accomplish that purpose and how in the pursuit of 
that end it must necessarily produce the poison by 
which it is to die. We have also pointed out 
what an important role as a conservative force it 
plays — alas! with little success — as a school for 
drumming proper views into the nation in uniform 
and civilian dress. But militarism is not content 
with that part ; it exercises even today and in quiet 
times its conserving influence in various other 
directions, as a preparation, as a preliminary prac- 
tice for the great day when after a long appren- 
ticeship and service as a journeyman it has to pro- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 119 

duce its masterpiece, for the day when the people 
rises boldly and fearlessly against its rulers, the 
day of the great reckoning. 

On that day, which the elect of militarism would 
see dawn rather today than tomorrow (because 
they hope that the sooner it comes the more surely 
it will be the deluge of Social Democracy) mili- 
tarism will shoot, fire grape-shot and massacre en 
masse to its ,heart's content "with God, for King 
and Fatherland." The 22nd of January, 1905, 
the bloody May week of 1871 will be its ideal and 
model. The commander of the Vienna corps, 
Schonfeldt, made a touching vow at a banquet of 
feasting bourgeois in April, 1894, when he said: 
"I can assure you that you, too, will find us behind 
your front when the existence of society, the en- 
joyment of the hard earned property are endan- 
gered. When the citizen stands in the first line 
the soldier flies to his assistance." 

Thus the mailed fist is ever raised and ready to 
come down with a crushing blow. Hypocritically 
they speak about "the maintenance of law and 
order," "the protection of the liberty to work," 



120 MILITARISM 

and mean "the maintenance of oppression," "the 
protection of exploitation." Whenever the pro- 
letariat exhibits an inconvenient animation and 
power, militarism at once attempts to scare it back 
by the rattling of the sabre, that militarism which, 
ever present and omnipotent, is behind every ac- 
tion the forces of the state undertake against the 
forces of labor, and gives to such action the ulti- 
mate, still invincible weight. That weight is, 
however, not merely reserved, behind the vanguard 
of the police and constabulary, for important oc- 
casions, but is also constantly available for the 
clearly understood purpose of aiding in the every- 
day work and of strengthening in a sustained 
guerilla warfare the pillars of the capitalist society. 
It is just that restlessly and craftily employed ver- 
satility that characterizes capitalist militarism. 

SOLDIERS AS THE COMPETITORS OF FREE 
WORKERS. 

As a functionary of capitalism militarism fully 
understands that its greatest and most sacred task 
is that of increasing the profits of the employing 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 121 

class. Thus it thinks itself authorized and even 
obliged to place the soldiers, officially or semi-offi- 
cially, as beasts of burden at the disposal of em- 
ployers, particularly the junkers, who use the sol- 
diers to supply that want of farm hands which has 
been caused by the inhuman exploitation and 
brutal treatment of the farm laborers. 

To send soldiers to help with the harvest is a 
practice as constantly met with as it is detrimental 
and inimical to the interests of labor. It reveals, 
like the system of soldier-servants,'^ the whole mis- 
chievous and stupid humbug behind the arguments 
which are used by those monomaniacs of the goose- 
step and the parade drill to show the purely mili- 
tary necessity of a long period of military service, 
and awakens not very flattering reminiscences of 
the company system of the time before the crash 
of Jena. More complicated are the numerous 
cases in which the post office and the railroad man- 
agement temporarily employ soldiers at times of 
heavy traffic, but they should also be mentioned 
in this connection. 



"^ The practice of officers of engaging private soldiers as 
domestics. [Translator.] 



122 MILITARISM 

THE ARMY AND STRIKE-BREAKING. 

By sending soldiers under military command to 
act as strike-breakers militarism interferes directly 
with the struggle of labor to emancipate itself. 
We need only point to the case of the present com- 
mander of the Imperial Anti-socialist Union, Lieu- 
tenant-General v. Liebert, who even as a simple 
colonel had comprehended in 1896 that strikes are 
a calamity, like a conflagration or inundation, of 
course, a calamity for the employers whose pro- 
tecting spirit and executive officer he felt himself 
to be. 

As regards Germany, a special notoriety at- 
taches to the method of gently pushing the men 
released from military service into the ranks of the 
strike-breakers, a method practised as late as the 
summer of 1906 during the Nuremberg strike. 

Of much greater importance are three events 
that occurred outside of Germany. In the first 
place we must mention the military strike-break- 
ing on a large scale that took place during the 
Dutch general railroad strike in January, 1903, 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 123 

and which had its crowning achievement in the 
law withdrawing from the railroad workers the 
right to organize. In the second place we refer to 
the military strike-breaking on a large scale during 
the general strike of the Hungarian railroad 
workers in 1904, on which occasion the military 
administration went farther still and not only 
commanded the men in active military service to 
break the strike, illegally keeping them with the 
colors beyond their period of service, but had the 
impudence to mobilize the railroad workers of the 
first and second reserves and such other men of the 
military reserves as had the necessary technical 
equipment, and force them into strike-breaking ser- 
vice on the railroad under military discipline. 
Finally, military strike-breaking on a large scale 
was resorted to during the Bulgarian railroad strike 
which was proclaimed on January 3, 1907. Of 
no less importance is the campaign inaugurated at 
the beginning of the month of December, 1906, in 
Hungary by the minister for agriculture in con- 
junction with the minister of war against the right 
of combination and the strikes of agricultural 



124 MILITARISM 

laborers, in which campaign stress was laid upon 
the desirability of thoughtfully training soldiers to 
serve as bands of strike-breakers in harvest-time. 

In France, too, strike-breaking by soldiers is 
well-known. 

The fact that military education systematically 
fosters strike-breaking propensities and that the 
workmen released from the active army become 
dangerous to the struggling proletariat, on account 
of their readiness to attack the members of their 
own class in the rear, must also be counted among 
the international militaristic achievements. 

THE RULE OF THE SABRE AND GUN IN 
STRIKES. 

'Preliminary Remarks. 
Military authorities everj^where have always 
been convinced of the capitalist truth of the saying 
that the Hydra of revolution is lurking behind 
every strike. The army is therefore always ready 
to put to flight with sabre and gun the disobedient 
slaves of the capitalist whenever the fists, sabres 
and pistols of the police are not immediately effec- 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 125 

tive in so-called strike riots. That is true in re- 
gard to all the capitalist countries and also, of 
course, in the highest degree of Russia, which, as a 
whole, is not yet a capitalist country, and which 
can not be considered as tj^pical in this respect on 
account of special political and cultural conditions. 
Though Italy and Austria are among the greatest 
sinners, they are surpassed by the states enjoying a 
republican or semi-republican form of government. 
In judging historically the value of the republican 
form of government under the capitalist economic 
system it is of the greatest importance to point out 
persistently that, apart from England, there were 
no countries where the soldiery was so willing to 
suppress strikes for the benefit of the employers 
and behaved so bloodthirstily and recklessly as the 
republican or semi-republican countries, like Bel- 
gium and France, with which the freest countries 
of the world, Switzerland and America, can easily 
bear comparison. Russia is, of course in this re- 
spect, as in all spheres of cruelty, beyond com- 
parison. Barbarism and worse than barbarism — 
the savageness of the beast characterizes the gen- 



126 MILITARISM 

eral civilization of her ruling classes and is the 
natural inclination of her militarism, which has lit- 
erally bathed itself, ever since the first timid stir- 
rings of the proletariat, in the blood of peaceful 
workmen who in monstrous misery were crying for 
deliverance. One must not cite any particular 
event, as that would mean tearing in a petty and 
arbitrary spirit a link out of an endless chain. 
For every drop of proletarian blood that has been 
shed in the economic struggle in all the other coun- 
tries taken together, Czarism has crushed a prole- 
tarian body, in order to suppress the most modest 
beginnings of a labor movement. 

An employment of military power similar in its 
nature we observe in the activities of the colonial 
armies and constabularies against those natives of 
the colonies who will not willingly allow them- 
selves to be brought under the yoke of the meanest 
exploitation and greed. However, we can not 
deal more fully with this particular subject. 

It must still be mentioned that often no sharp 
distinction can be made in this connection between 
the army proper and the constabulary and the 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 127 

police; they work together intimately, they re- 
place and supplement one another and belong 
closely together, if for no other reason than that 
the quality which counts here — a violent com- 
bative temper, a willingness and readiness to sabre 
the people resolutely and ruthlessly, is also, in the 
case of the police and constabulary, mainly a gen- 
uine product of the barracks, a fruit of military 
education and training. 

Italy, 

In two instructive articles (published in Mouvc' 
merit Socialiste, May-June and August-Septem- 
ber, 1906, Les massacre de class e en Italia^ Otta- 
vio Dinale gives an historical account of massacres 
of workmen in Italy. He does not merely deal 
with massacres directly connected with strikes, but 
also with those got up on occasions of labor demon- 
strations in the economic struggle outside of 
strikes. The articles show clearly how quickly the 
army appears on the scene in Italy on such occa- 
sions, for what slight cause and with what sur- 
passing severity military attacks are made on de- 



128 MILITARISM 

fenceless crowds, how it is even customary to con- 
tinue firing into and slashing at the fleeing, dis- 
persed crowd. He sums up by stating that in 
Italy the "bullets of the King" shatter the bones 
of Italian workmen every year perhaps some five, 
six or even ten times. He points out that the 
Italian bourgeoisie, the author of those massacres, 
is among the most narrow-minded, backward bour- 
geois classes of the world, that in the eyes of these 
capitalists Socialism is not a political philosophy, 
but a species of criminal disposition, criminal pro- 
pensity, the most dangerous for public order. He 
quotes the words written by the Milan newspaper 
Idea liherale on the morrow of the butchery of 
Grammichele : "Killed and wounded — those peo- 
ple have met the fate they deserve — the grape- 
shot^ that is the most precious element of civil- 
ization and order r 

After such samples one need not be astonished 
to hear that even a so-called democratic govern- 
ment, like that of Giolitti, never could be got to 
call the military to account for their bloodthirsty 
barbarities, but rather praised them officially "for 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 129 

having done their duty." It appears still more 
natural that a resolution of the Socialist party in 
the Italian Chamber demanding restrictive regula- 
tions in regard to the employment of the military 
in collective conflicts should be voted down. 

The first effect of the shootings of the month of 
May of 1898 was to clear the situation in the 
class-struggle and make even the blind and the 
short-sighted optimists see how matters stood. 
The following is a nearly complete register of the 
bloodshed of recent years : 

1901, June 2^, Berra 2 killed, 10 wounded 

1902, May 4, Patugnano i " 7 

1902, August 5, Cassano I " 3 

1902, September 8, Candela 5 " 11 

1902, October 13 ,Giarratana 2 " 12 

1903, May 21, Piere 3 " I 

1903, April 20, Galatina 2 " i 

1903, August 31, Torre Annunziata 7 " 10 

1904, May 17, Cerignola 3 " 40 

1904, September 4, Buggera 3 " 10 

1904, September 11, Castelluzzo i " 12 

1904, September 15, Sestri Ponente 2 " 2 

1905, April 18, Foggia 7 " 20 

1905, May 15, St. Elpldio 4 " 2 

1905, August 16, Grammichele 18 " 20 

1906, March 23, Muro • 2 " 4 

1906, March 21, Scarano i " 9 

1906, April 30, Calinera 2 " 3 

1906, April 4, Turino i " 6 

1906, May 12, Cagliari 2 " 7 



130 MILITARISM 

1906, May 21, Nebida i " i " 

1906, May 21, Sonneza 6 " 6 " 

1906, May 24, Benventare 2 " 2 " 

The total number is 23 butcheries with 78 killed 
and 218 wounded. A good harvest ! 

Innumerable are the cases in Italy where the 
military have been mobilized against workmen 
and "peasants" that were on strike or were demon- 
strating for some economic reason and where no 
blood was shed. Those "exercises" of the army 
are daily news items on the other side of the Alps. 

We may also mention here as a matter of course 
a fact attested by Herve, viz., that, just as it is in 
Italy, it is impossible to keep pace with the butch- 
eries of striking workmen and peasants in Spain, 
a country in whose territories once upon a time the 
sun never set and where it does not seem ever to 
rise nowadays. 

A ustria-Hungary, 
As is generally known, matters are not much bet- 
ter under the black and yellow flag of the Dual 
Monarchy. The Socialist deputy Daszynski 
could justly exclaim in the Austrian parliament on 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 131 

September 25, 1903, "During strikes and popular 
demonstrations, as well as during the ebullitions of 
national feeling it is always the army which turns 
its bayonets against the people, against the work- 
men, against the peasants." And with reference 
to general Austrian politics he could as justly point 
out, "We live in a state in which, even in times of 
peace, the army remains the only thing that will 
cement together such disparate elements." He 
could point to the incidents that took place at Graz 
in 1897 ^^^ ^^^ blood shed at Graslitz. At the 
downfall of Prime Minister Badeni, in the month 
of November, 1897, ^^ military were employed 
in Vienna, Graz and Budapest with sanguinary re- 
sults. We remember the frequent butcheries of 
workmen in Galicia (a case deserving special no- 
tice is that in which the blood of farm laborers 
was shed at Burowicki and Ubinie [Kanimko], in 
1902), the bloody events at Falkenau, Niirschan 
and Ostrau, which must properly be credited to the 
constabulary, a special body which is particularly 
devoted to maintain order in the interior and is 
partly subject to the orders of the military au- 



132 MILITARISM 

thorities, partly to those of the civil administrative 

authorities, which however is subject to a purely 

military discipline. During the general strike at 

Trieste, in February, 1902, there were also clashes 

with the army, and ten persons were either killed 

or wounded. We must also mention the incidents 

that took place during the bricklayers' strike at 

Lemberg in 1902, and the political demonstrations 

succeeding that strike, when hussars rode and shot 
into the crowd, killing five persons. The purely 

nationalistic scuffle at Innsbruck in 1905 is, how- 
ever, outside the scope of our subject. 

In Hungary considerable military excesses di- 
rected against the populace occurred quite fre- 
quently up to recent years, and the constabulary 
has always done its "full duty"; as, for instance, 
during the riots on the Pussta Tamasie, where it 
fired on peaceful farm hands without any reason 
whatever. One particular event of most recent 
date should be remembered, viz., the battle that 
was fought on September 2, 1906, in the county of 
Hunyad, where the military were on the rampage 
among the striking miners of the Petroseny 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 133 

coal mines. Numerous persons were severely 
wounded, two mortally, and a hundred and fifty 
were slightly wounded. 

On a later occasion we shall briefly refer to the 
other skirmishes and engagements which the army 
has fought in the political struggles of the prole- 
tariat of the Habsburg Dual Monarchy. 

In the speech mentioned above, Daszynski de- 
manded that the '"'bayonets should not mix in poli- 
tics.'^ But since that time, as every one knows, 
the bayonets have turned to politics more eagerly 
and actively than ever before. 

Belgium. 

In Belgium the butcheries of workmen have 
a long history. The events of the years 1867 and 
1868 are of importance, if only on account of the 
intercession of the International. The butcheries 
begin with the so-called hunger revolt of Mar- 
chienne in 1867, when processions of defenceless 
demonstrating workmen were set upon by a com- 
pany of soldiers and cut down. There followed, 
in the month of March, 1868, the massacre of 



134 MILITARISM 

Charleroi and, in 1869, the infamous butcheries of 
Seraing and the Borinage. 

The massacre of Charleroi, arranged by the mili- 
tary and constabulary against the miners who had 
been driven to the utmost desperation in conse- 
quence of the restriction of output and wage reduc- 
tions, induced the International at the time to be- 
gin a vigorous agitation in Belgium, and led to a 
proclamation by the General Council of the In- 
ternational, which resulted in a considerable suc- 
cess for the International as regards organization. 

The scenes of the sixties were repeated during 
the so-called hunger rebellions of 1886 in which 
not only economic questions, but also the demand 
for universal suffrage played a part, the latter in a 
confused manner, it is true. General Baron Van- 
dersmissen issued his notorious circular letter on 
April 3, 1886, a circular later condemned by even 
the Chamber of Deputies, in which he decreed 
cynically, ''V usage des armes est fait sans aucune 
sommatioff^ [use is made of arms without previous 
warning]. There was an unheard-of number of 
victims. In Roux alone 16 workmen were killed 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 135 

by a volley. On all this class-justice set its stamp 
of approval and laid particular emphasis by 
numerous heavy sentences which were imposed 
on workmen. From 1886 to 1902 there was 
scarcely a strike in Belgium without the military 
interfering. In that period some 80 men were 
killed. During the general strike of 1893, which 
though of a political nature may be mentioned in 
this connection, numerous people were left dead 
on the field of battle. The names of Verviers, 
Roux, La Louviere, Jemappes, Ostende, Berger- 
hout, Mons have been burnt as with a red-hot iron 
into the memory of the class-conscious Belgian 
working-class. They are blood-stained leaves in 
the big book registering the sins of Belgian capi- 
talism. It was in 1902 that the standing army, 
together with the reserves, was mobilized for strike 
purposes for the last time, that time in consequence 
of the general strike. The unfavorable reports 
about the disposition and sentiments of the sol- 
diers that reached the cabinet and were soon veri- 
fied by the fact that the soldiers began to show 
their revolutionary temper in a fairly open man- 



136 MILITARISM 

ner, sang the Marseillaise, hissed their officers, etc., 
led to the Flemish soldiers being sent to the Wal- 
loon districts and vice versa, and finally brought 
about the decision not to use the standing army at 
all. Since 1902 the proletarian soldiers of Bel- 
gium have ceded the honorable role of acting the 
watch-dog to capitalism, the part of a "flying sen- 
try before the money-chest of the employers," at 
least as far as the interior militarism is concerned, 
to the constabulary and civic guard, as previously 
set forth. To protect their sacred exploiting priv- 
ileges the bourgeoisie were now at all events 
obliged to exert themselves and risk their own 
skins — if such a danger can be said to exist at all 
in face of unarmed crowds. Elsewhere we have 
described that the civic guard does excellent work 
in the fight against the interior enemy. 

France, 

In France the history of the class-struggle has 
been written with rivers of blood. We will not 
conjure up the hecatombs of the three days' battle 
of July, 1830; nor the 10,000 that died in the 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 137 

street fighting from June 23 to 26, 1848, the vic- 
tims of the executioner Cavaignac; nor the first of 
December, 1851, of Napoleon the "Little"; nor 
the sea of blood made with those 28,000 heroes, in 
which the French bourgeoisie, murdering in a 
wholesale fashion as the agent and avenger of a 
capitalism that was shrieking with rage, tried in 
the red week of May of 1871 to drown the Com- 
mune, that capitalist slave war; nor the Pere- 
Lachaise cemetery and its wall of the Federals, 
the monuments of an incomparable heroism. 
These struggles, revolutionary in the highest de- 
gree, in which militarism did its fearful work, are 
outside the scope of our historical speculations. 

The exploits of French militarism against de- 
fenceless striking workmen begin at an early date. 
The so-called ''rebellion" of the silk weavers of 
Lyons, whose banner bore the famous and moving 
words, "vivre en travaillant ou mourir en com' 
bat tan f [to live working or to die fighting], be- 
gan in the month of November, 1831, by the mili- 
tary firing on a peaceful demonstration ; in a fight 
lasting two days the indignant workmen con- 



138 MILITARISM 

quered the town, the national guard fraternizing 
with them; but soon the military occupied the 
town without a blow. Ricamari, Saint-Aubin 
and Decazeville are names of localities rendered 
famous by the first exploits of militarism under the 
second French Empire. In those times the bour- 
geois republicans were most vehemently opposed 
to sending soldiers to the strike districts. These 
same republicans had scarcely got into power when 
they themselves began to adopt the method of 
Bonapartism which they had only just fought 
against, and they soon excelled their model. 
They found words of disapproval only when the 
culprit was a Clerical or a Monarchist, and then 
only out of political spite. At Fourmies a bullet 
from a Lebel rifle, striking down a young girl, 
Marie Blondeau, on May i, 1891, inaugurated the 
new regime's baptism of blood. The bag of the 
day, which was made by the 145th regiment of 
the line, consisted of 10 killed and 35 wounded. 
But the butchers of Fourmies, Constant and his 
assistant, Captain Chapuis, were soon to have com- 
panions. Fourmies was followed by Chalons in 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 139 

1899, La Martinique in 1900, then Longwy, where 
the officers sealed and celebrated the Franco-Rus- 
sian alliance by using Russian knouts; finally, in 
the months of May and June, 1905, there were 
the events of Villefranche-sur-Saone and particu- 
larly Limoges with the cavalry charges and shoot- 
ings of April 17, 1905. In December, 1905, the 
drama of Combree was enacted, and on January 
20, 1907, the people demonstrating in favor of 
Sunday as a day of rest were chased off the streets 
of Paris by an immense muster of troops. In this 
recital we must also not forget Dunkirk, Creuset 
and Montceau-les-Mines where, according to the 
report made by the Confederation Generate du 
Travail (the French Federation of Labor) to the 
Dublin international conference, the soldiers de- 
clared their solidarity with the strikers. 

What Meslier exclaimed during the latest great 
anti-militaristic trial is true: "Since the murder 
of little Marie Blondeau at Fcfurmies the working- 
class of France has passed through a long martyr- 
dom abounding in victims." Nothing shows bet- 
ter the absurdity of the illusion of a peaceful 



140 MILITARISM 

development cherished by the adherents of the 
"new method," than the fact that the vigorous 
growth and increase of anti-clerical and republican 
sentiment and activities which could be noticed 
in the France of the last five years, the France of 
Millerandism, has not resulted in a diminution, 
but positively in an increase of the "punitive ex- 
peditions" of the military against strikers. The 
latest radical democratic government of Clemen- 
ceau with its two Socialists will also not bring 
about a change. Lafargues's pointed remark in 
the Humanite^ "The modem armies serve exclu- 
sively for the protection of capitalist property, in 
so far as they do not concern themselves with plun- 
^dering colonies," hits the nail on the head in re- 
gard to France also. 

United States of America, 

It is easy to show what that "tone of equality" 
signifies which, according to Professor Sombart, 
pervades in many respects the social and public 
life of the United States, and to demonstrate that 
capitalism, when it comes to the point, can very 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 141 

effectively reinforce its "tone" by the sound of 
the cannon, the rattling of musketry and the swish- 
ing of the sabre, an accomplishment in which it 
still outstrips even the proletariat of America. 
The following facts are not only instructive in 
regard to the great importance which the methods 
of military recruiting and the disposition and 
training of troops have for their availability 
against the "interior" enemy. They often assume 
a peculiar character in consequence of the com- 
paratively well-armed condition of the working- 
class, attributable to circumstances peculiar to 
America. 

Beyond the ocean, as in Belgium, the period of 
the butchery of workingmen begins with the move- 
mxcnt of the unemployed. On January 13, 1874, 
a strong police force pounced upon an unemployed 
demonstration without any provocation. Hun- 
dreds of severely wounded workmen remained on 
the battle-field of Tompkins Square, New York. 

Then followed the dramatic events of the rail- 
road strike in the month of July, 1877. Against 
the strikers of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 



142 MILITARISM 

the governor of West Virginia sent several com- 
panies of state militia which proved too weak 
however. The 250 men of the Federal army sent 
to their aid by President Hayes achieved no 
better result. In Maryland the rifles of the 
militia killed ten and wounded a greater num- 
ber of men. In Pittsburgh the local militia, 
called upon by the sheriff, refused to act. 
The old trick of employing men from other 
parts of the country was resorted to. Six 
hundred men of the militia sent from Phila- 
delphia fought a short but fierce battle with the 
strikers, but were beaten and fled the next morn- 
ing. The militia called out against the strikers 
in Reading, Pennsylvania consisted mostly of 
workmen who fraternized with the strikers, dis- 
tributed their ammunition among them and threat- 
ened to turn their arms against all hostile militia 
units. But one company, which was almost ex- 
clusively composed of men belonging to the pos- 
sessing classes and was led by a reckless officer, 
opened fire on the crowd, killing 13 and wound- 
ing 22 persons. The company was, however, 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 143 

given no time to enjoy its exploit, and had to re- 
tire soon in a badly beaten-up condition. St. 
Louis, which for a time was entirely in the hands 
of the strikers, was finally re-conquered for "law 
and order" by the entire police force and several 
companies of the militia, after a veritable siege of 
the headquarters of the executive committee.^ 

The terror which overtook Chicago in the month 
of May, 1886, is attributable to the Pinkertons 
and the police force. Mr. McCormick, of the Mc- 
Cormick Reaper Works, let his armed Pinkertons 
loose upon the strikers (to protect the "willing 
workers," as was alleged), and thus started off 
the sanguinary attacks by the police, who clubbed 
men, women and children without distinction, 
killed six persons and wounded numerous others. 
That occurred on May 3. On the 4th of May the 
celebrated dynamite bomb affair occurred, which 
produced a violent street battle in which 4 work- 
men were killed and about 50 wounded, whilst 
of the police 7 were killed and 60 wounded. The 

8 See Hillquit's History of Socialism in the United States, 
which has been mostly used for the part referring to the United 
States. 



144 MILITARISM 

whole world is acquainted with the horrible trial 
arising out of the events of May 4, 1886, a trial 
in which the democratic class-justice of America 
gave a splendid proof of its qualifications. 

The events during the period from 1892 to 
1894 deserve a more detailed treatment. In the 
first place, violent fights took place in the month 
of July, 1892, during the strike in Carnegie's iron 
and steel works at Homestead between the armed 
Pinkertons, called in by the employer; 12 men 
were killed and 20 severely wounded, the Pinker- 
tons were beaten, and finally Federal troops 
brought about the defeat of the strikers by occu- 
pying the town, and with the help of military law. 
Almost at the same time a miners' strike broke out 
in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Here the militia, which 
was only some 100 strong, was not in a position 
to interfere in the fight between the strike-breakers 
and the strikers, who were well armed. It was 
only when Federal troops, asked for by the gov- 
ernor, arrived that the strikers were routed. 

In Buffalo the switchmen went on strike in the 
month of August, 1892. The local militia, called 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 145 

out immediately at the beginning of the strike, 
did not appear to be inclined to prevent picketing. 
Finally the sheriff was asked to request the gov- 
ernor to send troops, whereupon the entire militia 
of the state, twenty times more numerous than the 
strikers, appeared on the scene within forty-eight 
hours and restored "peace and quiet." 

In the same month the strikes at the iron mines 
of Inman and at the coal mines of Oliver Springs 
and Coal Creek caused the governor of Tennes- 
see to concentrate the whole available force 
of the state militia, after some portions of the 
militia had been disarmed by the strikers and sent 
home again. Here, too, the suppression of the 
strike was followed by the merciless work of class- 
justice. 

Finally we must make mention of the Pullman 
strike of 1894, when the President of the United 
States, not heeding the protest of Mr. Altgeld, 
the governor of Illinois, despatched Federal troops 
who broke the strike in conjunction with the state 
militia; 12 men were killed. As in all the other 
preceding cases the courts, it is true, worked jointly 



146 MILITARISM 

with militarism and contributed so much to the 
defeat of the workmen by means of the famous 
injunctions and wholesale imprisonments that the 
leader of the strike, Debs, attested: "Not the 
railroads, not the army defeated us, but the power 
of the courts of the United States." 

It still remains true that, though the militia 
failed frequently and though the strikers were fre- 
quently armed, it was the military power that de- 
cided the defeats of the workers in all the cases 
mentioned; and subsequently, too, the strikers in 
America "were in a majority of cases quelled by 
the aid of the local police, state militia or 
Federal troops," also aided, to be sure, by "gov- 
ernment by injunction." Almost without an ex- 
ception the strikes ended thus with the defeat of 
the workmen, according to Hillquit, who seems 
to be somewhat too pessimistic in this connection. 

Canada. 
Canada's "free" soil was reddened by the blood 
of workmen at Hamilton on November 24, 1906. 
During a collision with striking railroadmen the 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 147 

militia wounded 50 persons, some of them. se- 
verely. 

Switzerland. 

Switzerland's record in this field of military ac- 
tivity is truly quite a long one. As early as 1869 
the government of Geneva employed both the po- 
lice force and the militia against striking work- 
men. In the same year the government of the 
canton of Vaud recalled by telegraph a battalion 
that had marched off to do military exercises, sup- 
plied it with ball-cartridges and had it march with 
fixed bayonets into the town, where the workmen 
were on strike. It was also in 1869 that the 
government of Basle made troops act as pickets 
against the workers when the women silk weavers 
struck to improve their miserable conditions; and 
when in the same year a strike of vase-makers and 
engravers broke out at La Chaux de Fonds, the 
new bourgeois government provided itself with 
arms and ammunition for a possible mobilization 
of the militia. 

In 1875 b^oo^i was shed. The government of 
the canton of Uri mobilized the militia against 



148 MILITARISM 

2,000 striking workmen employed at the construc- 
tion of the St. Gothard tunnel, who were chiefly 
up in arms against the shameful truck system; it 
is said that the employers interested placed 20,000 
francs at the disposal of the government for that 
mobilization. As a result of the bold attack sev- 
eral people were killed and some 15 remained 
wounded on the battle-field of the class-struggle. 
Blood was also shed in 1901 by two companies 
called out against the strikers of the Simplon tun- 
nel by the government of the canton of Valais. 
Some workmen were severely wounded on that 
occasion. In the same year two companies of the 
militia had to do duty as pickets against striking 
Italian bricklayers in the canton of Tessino. In 
the month of October, 1902, occurred the well- 
known affair of Geneva where, during a strike 
directed against an American band of exploiters, 
the workmen were chased and clubbed by order of 
the government of Geneva. Militiamen who re- 
fused at the time to act as bum-bailiffs were im- 
prisoned and declared to have forfeited their civic 
rights. Incidentally it may be mentioned that on 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 149 

that occasion even many of the bourgeois that had 
not been called out armed themselves against the 
workers. At about the same time the militia was 
mobilized at Basle for a strike. In 1904 the em- 
ployers of the building trade at Chaux de Fonds 
called upon the government for military help 
against a strike which to their disgust was per- 
fectly orderly in spite of all provocations and 
therefore hopeless from the employers' point of 
view; as a result, cavalry and a battalion of in- 
fantry appeared promptly on the scene and, by 
intimidating the proletarians who were conducting 
a legal fight, forced them back into capitalist slav- 
ery. It was also in 1904 that the military was 
called out against strikers at the Ricken, in the 
canton of St. Gall, to protect, as was alleged, the 
fruit and vegetable harvest which was in no way 
endangered. St. Gall also sent its militia to 
Rohrschach, where, during a disagreement about 
wages in the foundries owned by French capital- 
ists, an excited crowd had smashed a few window- 
panes. A very serious affair took place at Zurich 
in the summer of 1906. In consequence of the 



150 MILITARISM 

great increase in the prices of all necessaries of 
life several strikes for higher wages had broken 
out in that city, when the workmen employed in 
the building trades likewise proclaimed a strike 
for the same reason. The militia interfered with- 
out the slightest cause with sanguinary results, 
and beat and clubbed the striking workmen in the 
most brutal fashion, dragging especially the for- 
eign strikers off to the barracks where they were 
struck with riding-whips under the direction of 
the officers. Moreover, picketing was prohibited 
as well as every kind of demonstration. The in- 
terpellation relating to those infamous events 
which was presented in the Grand Council was at 
first laid on the shelf and finally simply throttled 
without any discussion by the solid bourgeois ma- 
jority. And to cap it all, six of the strike leaders 
were put on trial and, on August 24, 1906, Sigg 
was sentenced to be imprisoned for eight months 
and to forfeit his active civic rights for one year, 
for an alleged incitement to mutiny by means of 
an anti-militarist leaflet addressed to the militia; 
the other five were acquitted. 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 151 

More can hardly be expected from a bourgeois 
republic and a militia. 

These things appear in their proper significance 
in connection with the fact mentioned elsewhere — 
that the Swiss citizens not in active military serv- 
ice had their ammunition taken out of their cus- 
tody in 1899. It will be seen that this hap- 
pened just early enough to facilitate, in view of 
the intensified form of the class-struggle, the em- 
ployment of the militia in the interests of the cap- 
italists. 

On December 21, 1906, the National Council 
had adopted, by a majority of 65 against 5^, a 
clause of the law on military re-organization pro- 
viding that, if conflicts of an economic nature 
"should endanger or disturb internal peace," the 
calling-out of troops "necessitated thereby" shall 
be resorted to solely for the purpose of ''maintain' 
ing public order.'^ The whole law was adopted 
by 105 votes against 4. Undoubtedly the provi- 
sion referred to does not mean anything but what 
was hitherto the rule of conduct followed when 
the military was called out; it is thus worthless, 



152 MILITARISM 

doubly worthless, nay, positively suspicious in 
view of the great minority who declared them- 
selves even against that clause. 

Norway, 

Norway, the free country that went through the 
most agreeable revolution in the world's history 
in the summer of 1905 and then proceeded to in- 
dulge in a monarchical head for her state out of 
pure love of pleasure, follows entirely the devel- 
opment of the capitalistic countries in spite of all 
the rustic romanticism still clinging to her. The 
employment of military force against striking 
workmen is also no rare occurrence in that coun- 
try of the peasant democracy. In an article that 
appeared in the Tyvende Aarhundrede on May 1, 
1903, a report is made on the subject. We learn 
that in 1902 alone two cases of the kind occurred, 
one in Dunderlands Dalen and the other in 
Tromso. 

Germany, 

There remains to be considered Germany. It 
is just in Germany where the employment of the 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 153 

military in economic conflicts is not customary. 
Scarcely any cases in which the army interfered 
actively can be reported, if we except the weaver- 
riots of 1847, when the Prussian infantry killed 
1 1 and wounded 24 of those wretched, atrociously 
tortured proletarians and class-justice finished the 
soldiers' work by sending a great number of people 
to the penitentiary, and if we further except the 
miners' strike of 1889, when the troops called for 
by Provincial President von Hagemeister, on May 
10, killed 3 and wounded 4 persons at the Moltke 
mine and killed 2 and wounded 5 in Bochum. 
During the riots of the Berlin unemployed, Feb- 
ruary, 1892, the military did not go into action, 
but it has been asserted on good authority that the 
Berlin military were consigned as early as January 
18, 1894, ^^ t^^ mere rumor that the unemployed 
planned a demonstration before the palace in Ber- 
lin. 

However, that military "moderation" does not 
find an explanation, as might be supposed, in a 
particularly mild and just disposition of the men 
at the helm of German affairs. The contrary is 



154 MILITARISM 

true of them. Germany possesses a strong police 
and constabulary force, excellently organized for 
rendering service to the capitalists. It is not for 
nothing that Germany enjoys the reputation of 
being the police state par excellence. Police and 
constabulary, both armed with deadly weapons, 
fulfil entirely the functions which elsewhere are 
allotted rather to the military, and in face of the 
greatly varying momentary requirements they 
prove themselves more handy and adaptable than 
the more clumsy and cumbrously working ma- 
chinery of the army. The number of sanguinary 
conflicts between strikers and the police or con- 
stabulary is quite large in Germany. The strike 
of the Berlin street railroadmen in 1900 and the 
so-called Breslau riots of 1906 are by no means 
exceptions. Biewald's ^ hacked-off hand is only 
an exceptionally provoking piece of evidence for 
the blindly furious recklessness of our police, that 
recklessness which is a fruit of military training. 
That hand is in goodly company alongside of split 

9 The name of an inoffensive workman who had one of his 
hands hacked off by an infuriated custodian of law and order 
whose identity was never disclosed. [Translator.] 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 155 

heads, amputated ears, noses, fingers and other 
parts of the body, and that collection is increasing 
rapidly. Altogether the number of cases in which 
blood is shed by the armed forces of the govern- 
ment during strikes can hardly be much lower in 
Germany than in other countries. To be sure it 
is quite impossible to estimate them even approxi- 
mately as, unfortunately, the cases of people hurt 
by the police during strikes are not adequately 
registered and inefficiently heeded. But if the 
number of those victims should be smaller in Ger- 
many than elsewhere this is not to be credited to 
the good, humane intentions of the employers, of 
the capitalist state. That is proved most conclu- 
sively by the fact that in Germany, too, military 
consignations and the holding ready of troops are 
almost uniformly resorted to during great strikes. 
The gravest case in point was furnished by the 
great strike of the Westphalian miners which 
lasted from January 8 to February 10, 1905.^^ 

10 The foot-note, continued on page 156, refers to the first 
great modern strike of the Westphalian miners, in 1889, when 
the men, who had great faith in the then very young Emperor, 
sent a deputation to Berlin to ask for his help. [Transla- 
tor.] 



156 MILITARISM 

The successful prevention of greater bloodshed 
should rather be exclusively ascribed to the sober- 
mindedness, moderation and strict self-discipline, 
to the training and the enlightened state of mind 
of the German working-class. And we should not 
doubt that the Prussian and Saxon governments, 
for instance, would not think twice before coming 
to the assistance of capitalism in the economic con- 
flict or a suitable occasion with rifles, sabres and 
guns and all the paraphernalia of militarism. 

veterans' associations and strikes. 

Considering that militarism takes pains by 
means of veterans' associations to keep up the 
militaristic sentiments of the men even after they 
have passed out of active military service and to 
propagate such sentiments, it must appear almost 



On May 19, 1889, the German Emperor explained to the dep- 
utation the miners had sent to him: "If I should notice that 
Social-Democratic tendencies get mixed up with the move- 
ment and itien are incited to illegal resistance I shall interfere 
with merciless rigor and employ the power — and it Is a large 
one — which belongs to me." According to the Freisinnige 
Zeitung he also expressed himself thus: If the least resist- 
ance were offered to the authorities he would have everybody 
shot down. 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 157 

as a matter of course that the veterans' associa- 
tions also interfere in strikes. To be sure, they 
are not able to take an active part in the violent 
suppression of the economic struggles of labor, but 
they may yet be called predestined strike-breaking 
organizations. In certain places at least one 
would very much like to employ them for that 
purpose. But the full exploitation of the veter- 
ans' associations for that purpose is impeded by 
the following facts and considerations : that these 
clubs contain, in spite of all the precautions taken, 
a considerable percentage of oppositional and even 
Social Democratic elements; that it is in. conflicts 
between capital and labor sooner than in other 
cases that even the most lamb-like workmen, men 
who are least intelligent in regard to social ques- 
tions find themselves getting angry and have an 
appreciation of the class-struggle and the position 
of their own class drummed into them; and that 
too reckless an anti-labor policy fails in its pur- 
pose and rouses even the Catholic and Liberal 
labor organizations. At any rate, the discussion 
about this subject which took place in July, 1906, 



158 MILITARISM 

at Ostheim, at the convention of the Grandducal 
Saxon Veterans' and Military Association of Saxe- 
Weimar, is of the greatest interest. The discus- 
sion arose in connection with a principle adopted 
by the convention, according to which every mem- 
ber of the association is in duty bound to urge the 
expulsion of such members as are shown to be ad- 
herents of parties hostile to the government, espe- 
cially of the Social Democratic party. The re- 
sult was that not all strikes, but all those strikes 
which run counter to the members' duty of "fidel- 
ity to Emperor, Prince and Fatherland" are con- 
sidered as actions betraying sentiments hostile to 
the government and revolutionary sentiments. 
Since it will depend upon the eminent gentlemen 
who as a matter of course play the first fiddle in 
the veterans' associations, to declare where and 
when said fidelity is called in question by a strike, 
and since those gentlemen, like our police and 
courts, are only too much accustomed to consider 
strikes (which only too often touch their own 
vital interests, directly or indirectly) as Social 
Democratic machinations, we can count upon a 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 159 

profitable activity of the veterans' associations in 
that field of labor. But it will be profitable not 
so much for the capitalists as for the Social De- 
mocracy, to which nothing can be more welcome 
than such clumsy tomfoolery that can only serve 
to enlighten the workmen and weaken the veter- 
ans' associations. The latter are expelling more 
systematically than ever not only the Social Demo- 
crats, but all of their members belonging to trade 
unions pervaded by the spirit of the modern labor 
movement. In the smaller places, no doubt, they 
create temporary difficulties for the unions by such 
methods, as they hold their members not only by 
means of the usual parades and carousals, but also 
by certain material advantages which have often 
been acquired through the payment of consider- 
able dues. 

' The activities of the veterans' associations are 
energetically promoted by the courts of class-jus- 
tice and the administrative authorities, who still 
have the courage to take up the grotesque position 
that these clubs, which betray their political propa- 
gandist character at every turn, are to be treated 



i6o MILITARISM 

as non-political organizations. That is a help 
which those organs of the capitalist state must 
render militarism if only for reasons of solidarity 
and in the interest of the common greater purpose, 
the protection of the capitalist order of society. 

THE ARMY AS A WEAPON AGAINST THE PROLETA- 
RIAT IN THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE, OR THE 
RULE OF THE CANNON. 

Just as the political struggle is the highest, most 
concentrated form of the class-struggle, the direct 
and indirect political interference in the class- 
struggle by militarism, that most concentrated 
manifestation of political power, shows the activ- 
ities of militarism in their highest, most concen- 
trated form. In this respect militarism operates 
in the first place as an economic power, as a pro- 
ducer and consumer. The ruthless exclusion of 
all Social Democrats and workmen suspected of 
sympathizing with them from the military work- 
shops, of Spandau, for instance; the practice of 
handing over the workmen subject to military in- 
fluence to the absolute control of the reactionary 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 161 

parties, particularly to the anti-socialist union, the 
black hundreds of Germany; the complete isola- 
tion of those workmen from even the slightest con- 
tact with the Social Democracy: all this demon- 
strates how perfectly militarism has comprehended 
its chief task, that of protecting the capitalists, 
and how it performs it with professional smart- 
ness. In this respect no Krupp, no Stumm ^^ is 
fit to hold a candle to militarism, which even sur- 
passes those whose interests it looks after in the 
energetic manner in which those interests are cared 
for. In the military work-shops of Spandau, for 
instance, the influence of the anti-socialist union 
is such as to make that organization positively the 
keeper of every workman's conscience in the royal 
factories, and it is simply for that organization to 
decide whether a workman is to be dismissed. 
Another striking proof of that statement was fur- 
nished by the incidents connected with the dis- 
missal of the committee of a harmless society of 
unskilled laborers of the military shops in the 

11 A great German iron-master who was notorious for his 
reactionary views and his patriarchial ideas on industrial life. 
[Translator.] 



i62 MILITARISM 

summer of 1906. A considerable influence, which 
is now, however, rapidly decreasing, is exercised 
by militarism by means of a boycott directed 
against all those saloon keepers whose places are 
used by workmen's societies or associations even 
slightly suspected of Social Democratic sympa- 
thies. By that boycott it kills two birds with one 
stone. It protects the soldiers as much as possi- 
ble from coming into contact with the poison of 
revolution (that, by the way, is part of the chapter 
on military pedagogy). In the second place, it 
makes it harder for the workmen to procure meet- 
ing places, as the policy is often carried out syste- 
matically so as to prevent the workmen from rent- 
ing any halls at all. In Berlin that kind of boy- 
cott has proved impracticable and has been nearly 
done away with for that reason, but our comrades 
in the smaller places have had no little to suffer 
from that policy of pin pricks, which is naturally 
also directed against the proletariat in its economic 
conflicts. 

Bui these are merely "ihe lillle wee ones^^ of 
Us Iricks. Militarism is not content with taking 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 163 

part in its tenacious and dashing manner in the 
intricate political guerilla warfare of every day ; it 
has infinitely higher aspirations. It knows itself 
to be the most important and strongest pillar of 
throne and altar in all the great and greatest, se- 
vere and severest conflicts of capitalist reaction 
against the revolution, and it has thrown its weight 
into the scales in all the previous great revolution- 
ary movements. Brief references will suffice. 
We have already referred to the frightful laurels 
earned by capitalist militarism in its battles with 
the Parisian proletariat in the month of July, 
1830, in June, 1848, and in the month of May, 
1871. We have also mentioned the provocation 
to riot, staged by "Napoleon the Little," on De- 
cember 2, 1852. The butchering of Chartists at 
Newport and Birmingham in 1839, when 10 peo- 
ple were killed and 50 wounded, deserves our 
special interest because it happened in England — 
''El lu, Brute!" For two years Russia has been 
under military law of varying degrees of severity 
and given up, for the protection of the Czar's bar- 
baric rule of the knout and the cruel suppression of 



i64 MILITARISM 

the movement for liberty, to the fists, whips, sa- 
bres, rifles and guns of the brutal soldiery that is 
about to turn that unhappy country into a great 
cemetery; and it is only the growing revolutionary 
development and the corresponding disintegration 
of the army (which necessarily keeps pace with 
the energy of the revolutionary forces) that make 
it certain that such a "Christian," but also sui- 
cidal project will not be realized. However, Rus- 
sia can be considered only with great qualifications 
in an examination of the capitalist countries, as 
has been stated several times before. 

Of importance is the part played by the stand- 
ing army in the first great Belgian suffrage fight 
and that played by the civic guard, that specifically 
militaristic class-struggle organization of the bour- 
geoisie, in the second great Belgian suffrage fight in 
1902. 

Apart from the calling-out of troops against the 
workmen who demonstrated in the Vienna Prater 
on May 1, 1896, and the events of Prague, Vienna 
and Glatz (1897), of Lemberg and Trieste 
(1902) which were treated of before, Austria has 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 165 

furnished another notable brilliant example of 
militaristic political action on a large scale in the 
electoral struggle of 1905. It is generally known 
that Bohemia was on the point of becoming the 
scene of civil war. On November 5 and 28, 1905, 
when the suffrage demonstrations took place, the 
city of Prague (where the miners were on strike, 
too) was filled with and surrounded by troops; 
the heights in the neighborhood of the city were 
occupied by artillery, ready to fire; some 80 per- 
sons were wounded — ^by the police, it is true. 

The Italian events that should find a place here 
have already been mentioned elsewhere. 

Let us now pass on to Germany whose supreme 
war-lord in a sentence of universal fame, which 
has been admitted as the most effective of weapons 
to the arsenal of the anti-militarist propaganda of 
all countries, supplied the soldiers with such a 
peculiar interpretation of the fourth command- 
ment, and who not only made that well-known 
speech against that ''rabble of men" (he meant the 
Socialists) at the guards' banquet, on the occasion 
of the anniversary of the battle of Sedan in 1895, 



i66 MILITARISM 

but also directed, on March 28, 1901, that famous 
appeal to his Alexandrian regiment. The mili- 
tary preparations and the exploits of General 
Wrangel by which, in 1848 and 1849, the German 
revolutionary movement, three-quarters betrayed 
and entirely left in the lurch by the bourgeoisie, 
was overwhelmed and basely robbed of its birth- 
right, were meant for the proletariat as such, as 
being then the only sound pillar of the "constitu- 
tion." We further remind the reader of the 
Boyen-Lotzen chain affair of September, 1870, and 
the ravings of Bismarck and Puttkamer in which 
those gentlemen of the nineteenth century, at the 
time of the shameful anti-socialist law, anticipated 
and longed for an opportunity when the working 
people, driven to revolution, could be sabred, shot 
and shelled to pieces in the dashing, correct, sports- 
manlike military fashion.^^ The military consig- 

12 Ludwigshafen in the Palatinate was literally occupied by- 
troops on the Sunday preceding the Reichstag elections of 
1887, and only the self-possession of the Social Democrats 
prevented the rifles from going off. Of interest in this con- 
nection is an utterance by the German Emperor which is en- 
tered under December 12, 1889, in H'ohenlohe's reminiscences : 
"then (when the Socal Democrats had the majority in the Ber- 
lin city council) they would plunder the bourgeoisie ; it was all 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 167 

nations during May-day demonstrations ^^ and 
Reichstag elections remain very well-known up to 
these days; very well-known are also the inci- 
dents accompanying the suffrage theft committed 
against the Saxon people in 1896, and the part the 
military played in the "pacification" of the Saxon 
populace in 1905 and 1906. During the Ham- 
burg election parades in November, 1905, on "Red 
Wednesday," the military, which consists of Ham- 
burgers, was kept in the background ; the sabre and 
revolver of the police sufficed; the result of their 
work were the two corpses which decorated the 
streets of the free Hansa city. 

However, it was the 21st day of January, 1906, 
which showed the bulwark of capitalism in its full 
splendor. He who on that day, in the quiet of 
"holy" sabbath, saw the guns that were rattling 
along in the streets of Berlin might have looked 

one to him, he would have the castle loop-holed and watch 
them pillage; then the bourgeois would be forced to implore 
him to help them." 

13 The first May-day demonstration (i8go) deserves par- 
ticular attention as the "military party" (Hohenlohe's remin- 
iscences, September 14, 1893) then wanted very much to use 
the occasion for a bloody settlement with the troublesome and 
hated Social Democracy. 



i68 MILITARISM 

into the very heart of militarism. That rattling 
of cannons still rings in our ears and encourages 
us to proceed with our fight against militarism 
with indefatigable persistence and unsparing ruth- 
lessness. 

On January 21, 1906, the military interference 
was brought about by a demonstration against the 
infamous Prussian franchise. We know, how- 
ever, that our militarism will be just as ready to 
slash and shoot if the issue were the overthrow of 
the imperial constitution in the reactionary inter- 
est by a coup d'etat. The latest disclosures of 
Hohenlohe and Delbriick have shown that Bis- 
marck, in 1890, was on the point of dispersing the 
Reichstag, doing away with the Reichstag suffrage, 
driving the proletarian masses into the street in 
front of the mouths of rifles and cannon, smashing 
the defenceless ranks of the people to crush the 
Social Democracy, so as to erect with blood and 
iron on the lacerated proletarian bodies a strong- 
hold of Bismarckian and junker reaction. We 
have also heard that the German Emperor could 
not be had for that plan because he wanted first 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 169 

"to redress the legitimate grievances of the work- 
men, and wanted at least to see everything done 
to fulfil their legitimate demands." We know 
that the views of the workmen and the ruling 
classes as to what demands of the workers are 
legitimate are entirely different, that the hostility 
shown to the Reichstag suffrage (to the most 
vehement opponents of which also belonged the 
ex-communist Miquel, as the Hohenlohe memoirs 
have disclosed) is continually gathering in strength 
at least in very influential North German circles, 
and that thus the danger of a "military solution" 
of the social question by rifle and cannon appears 
to be nearer than ever to-day. Should the chief 
of the general staff, Helmut von Moltke, be ap- 
pointed Chancellor, as was recently reported, it 
would signify to all appearances a victory of the 
notorious military court party. ^^ 

i^This coming man is characterized by the Berlin Tageblatf 
as follows : "Helmut von Moltke is considered a pronounced 
reactionary, a quality tempered with a certain soldierly frank- 
ness and buoyancy, but he is also said to have spiritualistic in- 
clinations. He is not at all a man of theory, but rather a 
dashing fighter who also possesses the 'courage of coolness' 
to carry on politics with the slashing sabre and the shooting 
rifle." So here we find at last the qualities desired by our vio- 
lent reactionaries all in one heap ! 



lyo MILITARISM 

There has never been in the world's history a 
lack of "grape-shot princes," ^^ grape-shot junkers 
and grape-shot generals. One ought to be pre- 
pared for everything. There is no time to be lost. 

veterans' associations in the political 
struggle. 

It is clear to everybody that the veterans' asso- 
ciations are very intensely engaged in political ac- 
tivities, but the German Justitia has not yet been 
able to see it through the bandage that covers her 
eyes. Everybody knows, too, how they are mobil- 
ized at elections and how they force their members 
to leave the political organizations of the opposi- 
tion. Mention must be made of their "loyal" 
practice of trying to prevent the class-conscious 
workers from renting halls for meetings. Two 
facts of recent date should be especially noted, viz., 
the boycott resolved upon (October, 1906) by the 
"Association of Former Soldiers of the Sixteenth 



15 Grape-shot prince was the name given the Prince of Prus- 
sia, the later Emperor William I., who was the head of the 
military camarilla that tried to crush and finally succeeded in 
crushing the revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848 and 
1849. [Translator.] 



SOME CARDINAL SiNS 171 

Army Corps of Duisburg-Beek" against the Kaiser- 
hof Hotel at Duisburg for having let its hall for 
a miners' meeting, and the expulsion from Saxon 
veterans' associations of proprietors of saloons and 
halls who rent their rooms to labor organizations. 
In the smaller places such fighting methods are of 
no little efficacy; employed against well organized 
workmen they are useless, however. 

MILITARISM, A MENACE TO PEACE. 

International political strains can even today be 
produced by nationalistic antagonistic principles; 
by the necessity of national expansion in conse- 
quence of the increase in population; by the neces- 
sity of annexing territories with natural resources 
for the purpose of increasing the national wealth 
(i.e., the wealth of the ruling classes) and ren- 
dering the state as self-dependent as possible in 
point of production (a natural complementary 
tendency arising from the policy of protection, a 
tendency which, however, can be only of the slight- 
est importance in face of the international divi- 
sion of labor which is establishing itself ever more 



172 MILITARISM 

vigorously and widely) ; by the necessity of fa- 
cilitating traffic in the interior or with foreign 
countries (for instance, by acquiring navigable 
rivers, sea ports, etc.), traffic being the means by 
which the metabolism of the economic body, trade, 
is carried on ; by antagonisms arising from a differ- 
ence in general civilization, particularly also dif- 
ferences in the stage of political development. 
But the most important political strains that can 
nowadays lead to warlike complications arise, as 
has been already stated above, through the compe- 
tition of the various countries in the economic 
field, through the world trade, world politics with 
all its complications, especially colonization. The 
persons on whose account those strains chiefly arise 
are the powerful expansionist capitalists of indus- 
try and commerce, who may be said to have an 
interest in a successful war. 

It must, however, be admitted that the existence 
of the standing armies, which represent militarism 
in its most pronounced form, is in itself a menace 
to international peace, an independent danger of 
war. That is true even if we leave out of account 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 173 

the argument that the increase of military burdens, 
that Archimedean screw, can produce in a country 
a disposition not to let a favorable moment of 
military superiority pass unused, or to bring about 
a military decision which is thought to be neces- 
sary in any case, before any further unfavorable 
movement in the relative military strength has 
taken place. Such a disposition, as is known, was 
not without influence in France during the latest 
Morocco conflict, but it is always more decisive 
for the moment at which the war breaks out than 
for the outbreak itself. But the standing army 
produces, as does indeed on a much smaller scale 
also the militia, a modern caste of warriors, a 
caste of persons who have been trained for war 
from infancy, as it were, a privileged caste of 
conquis tad ores that seeks adventure and promotion 
in war. To these must be added the groups that 
feather their particular nests during a war — the 
manufacturers of and traders in arms, munitions, 
warships, horses, material for equipment and 
clothing, provisions and means of transportation, 
in short, the army contractors, who exist of course 



174 MILITARISM 

also, but in smaller numbers, in countries having 
a militia. Both the groups who have a specific 
interest in war, in the making of war, viz., the 
officers who love adventure and the army contrac- 
tors whose interest is quite independent of the 
success of the war, are composed of people of con- 
sequence. They are related to the highest func- 
tionaries of the state, they have great influence 
with the men with whom rests the formal decision 
about war and peace. They let no opportunity 
go by without trying to convert that influence 
(which in most cases they have acquired only 
through the exploitation of militarism) into 
gleaming gold, sacrificing hecatombs of prole- 
tarians on the altar of their profit. In the role 
of colonial enthusiasts they push the "beloved fa- 
therland" into dangerous, costly adventures which 
prove exceedingly profitable for themselves, only 
to save that same fatherland afterwards at other 
people's expense in the role of naval enthusiasts 
in a manner which brings to them again exceed- 
ingly great profits. 

The fight against the standing armies and the 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 175 

jingoist militaristic spirit is a fight against the dan- 
ger threatening the peace of the nations. The old 
adage, ''Si vis pacem^ para helium^' may be true 
for the individual state surrounded by militaristic 
states, but it is in no wise true for the capitalist 
countries taken collectively, with which the inter- 
national propaganda of the Social Democracy is 
concerned. Still less does that adage prove the 
necessity of preparing for war in the particular 
form of the standing army, to which on the con- 
trary exactly the opposite aphorism applies — "'Si 
vis helium para pacem" : there is no greater danger 
of war than such a peace insurance ! It is true that 
for the aggressive economic-political imperialism 
of our days the standing army is the suitable form 
of war preparations. 

As truly as the maintenance of international 
peace is in the interest of the international prole- 
tariat and beyond that in the interest of the civil- 
ization of the whole of humanity, as truly is the 
struggle against militarism — that epitome of na- 
tional hatreds, that sum and extract of all peace 
disturbing tendencies of capitalism, in short, that 



176 MILITARISM 

serious danger of world war — a fight for civiliza- 
tion which the proletariat is proud to wage, which 
it must wage in its very own interest and which 
to wage no other class as such (leaving out of ac- 
count some well-intentioned enthusiasts who only 
prove the rule) is even remotely so much interested 
in. 

But militarism also disturbs the national peace^ 
(lot only by the brutalizing effect it has upon the 
people, the heavy economic burdens it imposes 
upon the people and the pressure of taxes and 
tariff thus brought about; not only by the corrup- 
tion accompanying it (see the cases of Wormann, 
Fischer, vonTippelskirchjPodbielski and friends) ; 
not only by dividing into two castes a people al- 
ready sufficiently oppressed by class-division; not 
only by its practice of maltreating soldiers and 
its system of dispensing justice: but above all by 
being a powerful obstacle in the way of every 
kind of progress, by being an ingenious and highly 
efficient instrument for closing by force the valve 
of the social steam-boiler. He who believes that 
the progress of humanity is inevitable must see in 



SOME CARDINAL SINS 177 

the existence of militarism the most important 
obstacle in the way of a peaceful and continuous 
evolution, to him an unbroken militarism must 
mean the necessity of a blood-red dawn of the 
capitalist idols — a capitalist "Gotzendamme- 
rung." ^® 

THE OBSTACLES OF THE PROLETARIAN 
REVOLUTION. 

To do away with militarism or to weaken it as 
much as possible is thus a question of vital im- 
portance in waging the struggle for political eman- 
cipation, the form and manner of which milita- 
rism debases in a sense, therefore influencing their 
character in a decisive fashion. It is all the more 
a vital question as the superiority of the army to 
the unarmed people, the proletariat, is far greater 
to-day than it was ever before on account of the 
highly developed military arts and strategy, the 
enormous size of the armies, the unfavorable local 



16 The German title of Nietzsche's "The Twilight of the 
Idols." It is a titular parody on Wagner's "Gotterdamme- 
rung." [Translator.] 



178 MILITARISM 

distribution of the various classes and the relative 
economic strength of proletariat and bourgeoisie 
which shows the proletariat in a particularly dis- 
advantageous position, wherefore alone a future 
proletarian revolution will be far more difficult 
than any revolution that has taken place hitherto. 
It is important always to remember that in the 
bourgeois revolution the driving force, the revolu- 
tionary bourgeoisie, was the dominant economic 
class long before the revolution in the narrower 
sense broke out; that the bourgeoisie found a 
numerous class, economically dependent on it and 
subject to its political influence, which it could 
send into the fire and make a cat's paw of; that 
the bourgeoisie had bought up, as it were, the 
old junk of feudalism before smashing and throw- 
ing it on the dumping heap, whereas all that the 
bourgeois have acquired by wealth the proletarians 
have to conquer by hunger and with their bare 
bodies. 



